


Alis Grave Nil

by ombredelarue



Category: Doctor Who
Genre: Alternate Universe, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2009-10-06
Updated: 2010-07-04
Packaged: 2017-10-17 23:53:28
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 47,762
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/182690
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ombredelarue/pseuds/ombredelarue
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which the Doctor receives a cryptic cry for help, Rome is visited, and the emperor is wearing a familiar face.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. A Coelo Uusque Ad Centrum

**Author's Note:**

> This is my attempt to re-interpret Virgil's 'Aeneid' (a cover version, if you will). This is also my -nervous gulp - first ever fic. How exciting.

  
_This is the tale of a man without weapons. Fated to exile, he was the last to fly from the molten land of his birth, and reach Italy’s Lavinian shores. He suffered many trials on his way, fighting on the earth and in the heavens. Always, he fled, running from the anger, the memories, the endless echoes of the dying and the dead._

 _Once there was an ancient town called Rome, inhabited by the descendants of noble Trojan warriors. Built on the majestic Tiber, Rome had wealth and power; it had skill and ferocity and war. It is said that the furies favoured Rome best out of all the cities on earth. It was there that they placed their stolen son of hell, and stockpiled their most deadly of weapons. It was there that the son of a dead empire came, to confront his past and decide his future. There are some things that can’t be escaped from, but nothing is heavy to those who have wings._  
   
\--------------------------------  
 Well, this was odd.

“I AM PRISONER TO THE FURIES. ALL WILL SURELY END. HELP GAIUS GERMANICUS.”  
   
Messages on the physic paper – that was nothing new.  It was never party invitations, though, was it?  Never anything _fun_.  The Doctor never found himself thinking, “Oh, goody, this’ll be a laugh” upon opening it to find something scrawled inside.  Just once, he would like to find an address and a little drawing of balloons, a smiley face, ‘The Doctor is invited to...’  
   
No, the Doctor was used to desperate cries for help, flung across space and centuries, into the TARDIS and into his hands.  Thing was, they didn’t usually leave a name.  This could make tracking them down difficult, to say the least.  But Gaius Germanicus - lovely, considerate Gaius Germanicus, had the good grace to leave his moniker.  This was a nice touch, akin to a twenty-first century human leaving their name at the end of an answer phone message.  It made the Doctor all the more inclined to help him.  
   
So Gaius Germanicus, where was he hiding?  The name sounded like it could be either of Roman origin, or a small planet named Dardanus, on the left-hand side of the Teucrian complex.  A breakaway sect of the Fourth Great and Bountiful Human Empire, they did their best to recreate the glory days of Rome.  This wasn’t easy on a gaseous planet, but you had to admire them for trying.  The Doctor had never been there, but he’s always wanted to visit.  
   
“I think Latin,” the Doctor said, peering at it through his glasses.  “Look at that U;  it’s a V really, isn’t it?   They didn’t do that on Dardanus, apparently it was too confusing.  And everyone around them kept making jokes about ‘I, Clavdivs’ – good series that, a bit on the long si-“  He broke off when he realised he had been talking to himself again.  He fancied that the TARDIS could hear him - well, she could but she probably wasn’t into Period BBC pieces.  The Doctor shook his head.  He should probably be worried – first sign of madness and all that.  Oh, well – brain this size, he could probably afford to lose a bit here & there.  
   
“Gaius Germanicus… I do know that name, don’t I?”  He absentmindedly sucked on a finger.  “It’s someone… Or their moniker.  Or their real name.  They did that all the time, the Romans, renamed themselves when they got bored with their first one, or when the situation called for it.”  He was doing it again!  He sighed heavily.  Oh, well.  If he couldn’t beat… himself, he might as well give up and accept that he was just going a bit mental.  And that was fine, really.  With what he’d been through, he was allowed to go a bit mental.  
   
“Enough self-pity,” he told himself sternly.  “Poor Gaius Germanicus – who is someone, I know it - undoubtedly has it far worse than you do.  At least, I hope so.  This will be a thorough waste of time otherwise.”  Indeed, time that could be spent moping around and making back-up sonic screwdrivers ( _not_ laser);  thinking about things that were, quite frankly, ridiculous at best and highly improbable at middling.  This was just what the Doctor needed.  A good adventure to get the blood pumping.  He’d rush in, save the oppressed hordes – who would most likely be oblivious, but you can’t have everything – from the ghastly villain.  If Gaius Germanicus – or a friend, he wasn’t fussy – proved likable enough, he’d offer him a trip to the stars.  Maybe he’d offer several;  however many until real life called his new companion back to Earth.  And then the Doctor would be back where he started.  On his own, “the lonely god” (the Doctor made bunny ears in the air), all that tinkering away across solar systems while his human friends discovered just how short their lifespans were.  And he was just fine with that, really.  It wasn’t like there was an alternate option, in any case.  
   
That actually sounded like a jolly good plan.  Just pick someone up, wow them with an exploding nebula or two, maybe a minor scrape with a vaguely malevolent race, then drop them back home, before it got all… _serious_.  The Doctor didn’t like to have people worry about him.  The concern was a nice enough gesture, he’d grant that, but who likes their friends giving each other furtive glances when they thought they were unwatched?  Oh, the tiresome conversations punctuated by all the “Are you sure you’re okay?”s and gentle pats on his arms.  If you wanted to avoid this endless parade of obviously misplaced sympathy, you were forced to stick to topics so trivial that they scarcely deserved discussing.  The Doctor loved Jack and Martha.  Really, he did.  But admittedly, it was a relief, after they’d gone, to not have him staring into space for several minutes treated as an admission of endless angst.  He enjoyed their company, but he didn’t need the questions about why he’d suddenly gone quiet in the middle of the conversations.  
   
Or why he still kept that bloody birdcage underneath the console.  
   
Or why he hadn’t washed his coat, despite it now smelling like acrid smoke…  
   
The Doctor shook his head.  He was being silly and self-centered again.  He was good at that, especially when on his own. Jack and Martha certainly had their own issues to work out.  He should visit them, really.  Maybe he would, when all this was done.  He should, he really should…  
   
“So Gaius Germanicus, who are you?  You’re Roman, you can write, you’re kept by the Furies – whatever that means, and if it means that you’re in a really bad mood, you’ll have mine to deal with.”  The Doctor sighed.  He didn’t know.  But he had a lucky feeling.  He couldn’t explain it.  He just felt that he should put this one in the hands of faith, and his very capable TARDIS.  She, he often felt, actually knew far more of these things than he did.  Right then.  He leapt upon the console, twiddling the appropriate switches to send him to – “Oh, Roman Empire, Italy, Earth, somewhere between 753 BCE and 476 CE.”  
   
\-------------------------------------  
   
The TARDIS landed with a thunk.  It was a very satisfying noise, one with an air of finality.  The Doctor hoped that he had been wise to trust his lucky feeling as he put on his jacket.  Would he really need it?  Italy was pretty warm.  Eh.  Nobody ever regretted bringing a coat, and plenty had died of hypothermia regretting the opposite.  The Doctor stepped outside.  
   
A mild breeze met his face, and he smiled at making the right decision.  It was a fairly nice day;  the product of a warm summer breathing its last into a cool autumn.  The Doctor sniffed the air as he walked from where his TARDIS was parked – in a small marketplace corner, it seemed.  He guessed it to be October, and he wondered if there was a holiday on or something – the Romans certainly had enough of them.  The marketplace, which should have been bustling at this time of day, was completely deserted, russet coloured leaves taking the place of the traditional tumbleweed.  The stalls were stripped, standing stark like leafless trees in winter.   The Doctor sighed.  He sincerely hoped that the Furies weren’t some alien breed that ate a lot of humans in a very short space of time.  
   
He walked further, approaching the Forum Magnum.  The sound of cheering met his ears as he grew nearer.  Thank goodness for that!  Humans, happy, alive, hopefully not under hypnosis, were out celebrating.  It looked like a parade or something similar, and apparently the entire population of Rome had turned out to witness it.  Small children ran about, waving gaily coloured flags, as adults gossiped and craned their necks to see an approaching sedan, still far off in the distance.  The air carried the scent of roasted nuts – that was more like it, a healthy profit being made, the joy of the general populace bringing in income.  Oh, he sounded old and cynical.  Stop that.  
   
Indeed, everyone certainly looked cheerful.  They didn’t look like they were under immediate threat of alien genocide, but better men had been fooled before.  Well, that wasn’t actually true, but still.  The Doctor pushed his way through the crowd till he was at the front, probably annoying several Romans in the process.  He peered down the forum, but the sedan, golden and glinting in the afternoon sun, was still a good several hundred meters away.  Hmm.  He thought of Rose and her domestic approach.  This wouldn’t be a bad time to try it.  He turned to the nearest bystander, a dark-haired and proud-looking woman giving him a thorough glare.  Fair enough, he had taken her spot.  He supposed he was being rude again.  Oh dear.  
   
The Doctor opened his mouth to speak, only to be cut off by her addressing her young child:   “That’s alright, Ascanius, you stand in front of the rude man that took our spot.  He dare not complain, if he knows what’s good for him.”  Her glare seemed to intensify, if such a thing were possible.  
   
This was awkward.  The Doctor rubbed the back of his neck sheepishly.  
   
“Ah… I’m sorry.  I’m a foreigner;  I have traveled from lands where to…use force to get a good view is quite normal.  I’m positively uncivilized, a barbarian in Rome.  Your son is most welcome to stand there.  I would put him on my shoulders if it would give him a better view, but to trust your offspring to the shoulders of a barbarian is probably not the best idea.”  
   
The woman was staring at him like he had grown another head.  She clutched her son’s shoulder, keeping him close to her.  This was why the Doctor traveled with companions.  They were so much better at this than him.  
   
“Look, I’m not…. mad or anything, but this question is going to sound really daft.  I’ve only just arrived in Rome, and I’m dreadfully dazed and confused, and rather misinformed.  Can you tell me why you’re having this parade?”  
   
The woman raised an eyebrow.  “We are celebrating the emperor’s return to health.”  
   
“Ah.  Been ill, has he?”  
   
“Well, obviously,” the woman said.  “He has been unwell for some time.  They say it is a fever of the brain.”  
   
“I see.  I had an uncle with something like that.  Bad, was it?”  
   
“I know only what they tell us, which isn’t as much I’d like.”  She sighed.  “He was on his deathbed not a week ago, or so says the rumour.  But here he is!  Back from the dead, like Theseus.”  Her face was alight with admiration, an internal glow that would not be easily extinguished.  The Doctor really hoped she wasn’t under some form of mind control, he really did.  
   
“You like him, then?”  
   
“My grandfather Achates – he did not support the change from republic to empire under Augustus.  One of the old school, you know.  He was exiled, leaving my grandmother a single mother with 5 children.  They coped – else I wouldn’t be here – but it was hard.  My grandfather was a good man.  He was greatly missed.”  The woman paused, and then smiled.  “This year, when our emperor took power, he gave an amnesty to those exiled under Augustus and Tiberius.  My grandfather was allowed back into Rome after all these years.  He found a great family of descendants waiting to greet him.  He has lived alone, like a leper, for so long – now he has thirty-three great-grandchildren bearing his name.  All thanks to that great man there.”  She nodded to the sedan, which was growing near, though moving slowly.  
   
The Doctor sighed inwardly in relief.  This woman was under an influence no more nefarious than love.  But he was getting distracted.  An emperor was all well and good, but not what he came here for.  He had better get information from her before she went quite delirious with joy.  
   
“I was wondering, Madam – if you could tell me – I’m looking for a man in Rome.  We’ve only talked by letter;  I’ve never seen his face.  I know it’s unlikely in to find a specific Roman in well, Rome, but do you know a man by the name of Gaius Germanicus?”  
   
The woman laughed, a loud bark.  “Such a coincidence, no?”  At the blank look on the Doctor’s face, she asked, “Where do you come from to be so spectacularly ignorant?”  
   
“I – uhh.”  May as well bluff it.  “Brittannia.  Small island off Europe.  You’re interested in invading us, I think.”  
   
“I see.  Is that how they dress in Britannia?  I’ve never seen clothes so strange.”  
   
“What’s wrong with this suit?  But - do you know him?  Should I not be looking for Gaius Germanicus?”  
   
The woman laughed again.  “Well, I don’t think I know the Gaius Germanicus you know.  But I am familiar with a great man that sometimes goes by that name.  That man, there, the greatest emperor Rome has ever known – Caligula!”  
   
The sedan was almost right in front of them.  The woman and her son broke out in enthusiastic cheering.  The Doctor felt properly thick.  Gaius Germanicus was Caligula’s real name, the one he’d been known by until his penchant for footwear as a small child had become known.  That’s where he’d heard the name before.  Not an old friend, someone he’d met before and lost track of.   An emperor.  He’d probably read it in a sodding history book.   He ran his hand through his hair.  Great.  He’d gone and found an emperor, when out there, someone needed his help.  
   
The cheering around him was reaching a fever pitch as the sedan moved directly in front of them and stopped so the man inside could wave at his loyal subjects.  Eh.  The Doctor might as well enjoy himself while he was there.  In a way, he was quite pleased to see the infamous Caligula – he’d heard that he was a great drinking partner in the days before he went completely off his rocker.  The sun was blinding him as he looked up to the sedan, balanced as it was on the shoulders of four guards, well above eye level.  The Doctor shielded his eyes with his hand, squinting at the Emperor of Rome.  A voice spoke out from within.  
   
“I thank you, kind citizens, for your thoughts in this troubled time.”  
   
The Doctor knew that voice.  
   
“Surely, it was your good will that has brought me back to the health that I now enjoy.”  
   
The Doctor had heard that voice before.  He had heard it at the end of the universe, laughing at him from inside a stolen ship.  He had heard that voice whispering through a telephone in the twenty-first century.  He had heard that voice taunting him every day for a year.  
   
But it couldn’t be.  
   
The man in the carriage leaned out slightly, pushing back red velvet drapes and waving at his subjects.  He wore a smile on his face, a face the Doctor knew so very well.  Fair hair curled around it; dark eyes shone with child-like mirth.  He seemed younger than the when the Doctor had known him, the Emperor’s pale skin completely untouched by wrinkles.  
   
The Master.  
   
But it _couldn’t_ be.


	2. A Coelo Uusque Ad Centrum

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Doctor is in Rome, the emperor has a familiar face and something is very, very worng. In this episode! The Doctor witnesses a strange fit, and offers his services to a potty-mouthed sociopath.

It simply wasn’t possible.  It just couldn’t be so.  And yet, in the manner of all the impossible things that make this universe so fascinating, there it was.  
   
Damn him, damn him, _damn him_.  What was he doing here?  He was dead.  He had _died_.  This meant that he should be no longer living, and certainly not running around as Emperor of Rome in the year 37.  He shouldn’t be doing anything!  And why?  Because he was dead.  The Doctor had seen, no, felt him die, in his very own arms. He had considerable authority on the matter.  The Master was dead.  He was deader than dead.  He had passed on, met his maker, finito benito, the end, that’s all, folks!  The Master wasn’t allowed to be _alive_.  This was ten million different types of wrong.  This just wasn’t _fair_.  
   
The Man In The Sedan (This title would have to do. His internal narrator refused to ascribe that infernal name to a living man, and to say Caligula felt like such a blatant lie.) was acting rather strangely for a complete and utter bastard, though.  He had leaned out of his sedan, arm stretched out into the crowd, fingers dancing over their open hands.  He was ripe for the grasping by his loyal citizens.  This was a somewhat brave move for any political figure.  Who knew if someone in the teeming hordes had a knife concealed?  Or just very sharp teeth?  It would seem that his ability to do this was an indication of his popularity – so far it had seemed that he had sustained nothing worse than a very vigorous handshake.  
   
It would seem likely, then, that this wasn’t a man who had tortured and murdered his way to the top.  And the woman next to the Doctor – who was by now practically dribbling, _good grief_ – hadn’t used words like “evil, mass-murdering, dictator genocide-face.”  She’d used words to the effect of “great and wonderful forgiveness monkey.”  She seemed to be genuinely fond of him.  Heck, everyone here celebrating did.  Were they under mind control?  Or did they have good reason to like The Man In The Sedan?  
   
If what his neighbor said was true, then he had been acting out of sorts for his old self.  Acts of altruism weren’t his style at all, unless it was for publicity purposes (How the Doctor remembered the shiny new children’s hospital built in Bethnal Green! It was all Harold Saxon’s idea, of course. It had been one of the Toclafane’s first targets, of course).  But then, Roman Emperors didn’t need to win votes.  What was he playing at?  The Doctor didn’t know.  He was fed up with this.  Just once, he wanted an even playing field.  They’d been on the same plane at one point, a very long time ago now…  
   
The Man In The Sedan had found the hand of young Ascanius, lifted into the air by his adoring mother.  The little boy was shaking with excitement, the joy radiating off him as strong as ultra-violet light.  His Emperor smiled at this display of obvious enthusiasm.  
   
“This boy is a true son of the Roman Empire.  I cannot tell you how happy it makes me to see such love burning in the hearts of the young.  You, madam” he said, addressing Ascanius’s mother, “have done a great service to your country in raising such a fine young man.”  
   
Such fine political hyperbole!  Such things you learn in Downing Street, the Doctor supposed.  And yet, beyond all his - completely justified - anger and confusion, there was a strange feeling of doubtniggling away at him.  Yes, that’s what it was.  _Niggling_.  There was a big fat _niggle_ in the Doctor’s mind.  Something was off about this Master 2: Return of the Roman Empire!  It was as if he had actually become the impression that he wanted to leave on people as Harold Saxon.  His face seemed kind and warm – he had always looked a bit smug and superior in England (and as it turned out, rightly so --- he had known something they didn’t!).  His words seemed to belie genuine gratitude for his citizens’ worry and care.  He seemed _nice_.  
   
The Doctor supposed that it was in fact possible that this man was actually Caligula, the third Emperor of Rome.  He just had a really unfortunate resemblance to someone that the Doctor knew.  Used to know.  Didn’t know any more, because of the person being very, very _dead_.  
   
Of course, it could just be that he had gotten very, very good at mind control.  
   
The woman was speechless at being addressed, mouth opening and closing like a goldfish.  The Man In The Sedan (Caligula? Oh god. The Doctor didn’t know.) just smiled at her and let go of her son’s hand.  
   
“Again, citizens of Rome, I thank you.  Keep me in your thoughts – my recovery is not yet complete.”  
   
With that, he gave his carriers a signal to move forwards. The poor men – what an unbelievably _shit_ job, the Doctor thought – gave small grimaces and began the slow slog onwards.  The Man In The Sedan turned back to wave at those he was leaving, giving a special finger wiggle to Ascanius, who made a noise like a very excited guinea pig.  
   
Come on, the Doctor thought.  Look at me, you bastard.  You’ve dragged me all the way here; the least you could do is look at me.  Oh, the physic paper, that was very clever, very nice, and now I’m here and you’ve got something horrible planned, and you’re going to twist it so it will all be my fault again, and I’m sick of this, I’m so fucking sick of this.  It can never be normal, can it?  You’ll never let me help you, when instead you can just go on being a big great bastard.  Why do you do this?  We could have had something, it could have been good, it could’ve been – Oh god.  He’s looking at me.  
   
He was.  The Master was staring straight at him.  There was no way that the man in the sedan was anyone other than his old friend. The Doctors _knew_ it.  The knowledge and instinct made him shiver, his response as involuntary as a muscle memory. He couldn’t breathe, he was dizzy, and there was no way he could survive this incredible _gaze_. It was impossible to say how long this contact lasted – it could have been milliseconds, it could have been millennia. The Master was looking at the Doctor, and the Doctor was looking at the Master.  
   
And then the Master wasn’t looking at him at all.  He wasn’t looking at anyone. His gaze had grown unfocused and hazy, eyes vainly seeking the heavens.  A silent litany of formless words escaped his mouth, as his unsupported head lolled to the side.  He looked, the Doctor thought with a sickening feeling, like a retired marionette.  It was horrible to see.  
   
The sedan had stopped, its carriers looking at each other in confusion (though, thankfully, not shrugging their shoulders).  There was a collective breath from the crowd as they looked on in horror, their good moods cruelly snatched away.  A fervent wave of whispering swept across the Forum Magnum.  
   
“What’s happened?”  
   
“It looks like a fit again.”  
   
“I thought he was better!”  
   
“It was a dart!  A poison dart hit him when he wasn't looking, I’m sure of it!”  
   
“A plot against the Emperor!”  
   
“Germania, surely!  
   
“The Emperor is dead,” a lone voice wailed out from the crowd.  High-pitched and desperate, it would have been comical if it not for the emotion behind it.  At once, screams began to break out across the forum.  A woman a few meters away from the Doctor fell to the ground, clutching at her hair and sobbing.  
   
It was funny, the Doctor thought, how fear and panic acted to create something like a shared consciousness on the decidedly non-telepathic human race.  The crowd of spectators, all separate individuals not minutes ago, had seemingly transformed into one giant wave of being.  They pressed furiously forward towards the sedan, desperate for – what?  A glimpse of their emperor?  Confirmation of his continuing existence?  Flecks of his spittle on their arm, a souvenir to marvel at and show around?  Thankfully, the red velvet drapes had been drawn, keeping eyes off this gruesome spectacle.  The imperial bodyguards did their best to keep the teeming hordes at bay, but not without effort and injury – the Doctor saw one man with deep, bloody gouges running across his cheek.  
   
“The Emperor is dead!”  The cry ran out again and again, the despair of the populace put on endless repeat.  With every repetition, it seemed to gain conviction and truth.  The first time?  The folly of hysteria.  The second?  Well, it could be true.  The third?  A sinking conviction as one processed the information and pondered the death of such a fine young man, his prime not even yet reached.  The fourth?  Oh god, it was true, eyes prickled with tears.  The fifth?  A cry raised to the heavens from your own throat and breast, bemoaning the unfairness of it all.  And on, and on, ad finitum.  
   
The Doctor found it quite unsettling.  He knew what he had seen – some sort of fit, most likely not fatal, brought on by illness. (And _no_ t eye contact. What sort of ridiculous notion was that? A completely ridiculous one, that’s what.)  And yet, he couldn’t shake the hollow feeling of dread that was threatening to overtake him.  It grew with every frantic eulogy that met his ears.  What if he’d found him again, just to have him go and die?  What if he’d planned this?  What if the note had been a genuine cry for help, and he’d come too late?  What if, what if, what if, _oh god_.  The Doctor found himself caught up in the mass hysteria.  His body pressed onwards, one amongst hundreds, as he sought a glimpse of the sedan’s interior.  He wasn’t even sure what he was looking for.  He just needed some confirmation of the nameless feeling gnawing away within him.  Something, _anything_.  The Emperor was dead!  
   
“The Emperor is not dead!”  
   
A voice rose from the delirium, carrying over the shouts and screams through some supreme skill.  The crowd, as easily spooked as horses, quieted almost instantly.  
   
“Thank you.”  The owner of that tremendous voice stepped from the sedan’s shadow.  He was a young man, tall and dark-haired.  He seemed naturally authoritative in the way that freakishly good looking people often do.  The man cleared his throat and spoke again.  
   
“I repeat, the Emperor is not dead.  He is experiencing a mere fit; a relapse of the brain fever that has been plaguing him.  Our physicians have assured us that such things are to be expected as part of a healthy convalescence.  He will return to his palace now, where he will be looked after by the wisest men in Rome!”  The sentence was ended on a roar, one easily matched by the eager crowd.  The Doctor was amongst those crying out, rather shamefully.  
   
The man smiled and nodded.  “Yes, it’s good, I know.  Now, rest assured that anyone foolish enough to impede our progress will be executed without delay.  Go to your homes now, dear citizens, and pray to the gods for your emperor’s swift recovery.”  With that, he turned to the carriers and gave the signal to move off. The poor men grimaced, and began the long walk homewards.  
   
*  
   
The Doctor walked swiftly, careful to keep the sedan within his sights.  It was a tricky balance – walk too slowly, and lose sight, getting himself lost in the labyrinth of Rome.  His geography of this city wasn’t nearly what he thought it was.  The alternative was walk too quickly, be deemed a nuisance, and get himself swiftly bayoneted.  He was drawing far too much attention as it was.

“Hey, you,” a drunken voice called out from a carriage pulling up alongside him.  The Doctor kept his head down.  
   
“What, you’ll dress like that, with your little arse on show for the gods and everyone to see, but you won’t even look at me?”  
   
Well, that had been more creative than the previous three, the Doctor gave him that.  He concentrated on the rhythm of his dual heartbeats matching the rhythm of his feet on the genuine Roman Empire concrete.  
   
“Oh baby, won’t you give me a smile?  I’ve had such a bad day.  You’d make the sun shine again!”  
   
The Doctor spun around to face his would-be Casanova.  “That doesn’t even make sense! It’s growing dark! The stars are coming out! Delay me smiling by about twelve hours and you might be on to something, but otherwise – you’re mad!”  
   
The man in the carriage – middle aged and balding, face flushed with Dionysian revelry – smiled blearily at the Doctor.  “I got him to talk,”  he crowed.  “Look at that mouth!  How much for the night, eh?”  
   
That was it.  “ _I am not a prostitute!_ ” the Doctor cried.  “I am a mad foreigner, yes, but this is how we dress where I’m from!  It could be argued that wearing what is essentially a frock makes you the bigger tart out of the two of us!  Now leave me alone!”  He turned back and increased his pace, staring intently at the endlessly fascinating genuine Roman Empire concrete.  
   
Silence, then:  “Huh.  You probably have diseases,” before the carriage disappeared down a side street.  The Doctor exhaled heavily.  He was not having a good day.  
   
This was all very wrong.  Aside from the obvious – the Master being in charge of the largest Empire on earth, seeming oddly genial, and then fainting like that (which could’ve been caused by anything. It could’ve easily been a coincidence. But it wasn’t), something was making the Doctor uneasy.  It wasn’t like him to get swept up in mass hysteria like that.  It was too raw; it was too _human_.  He felt fine now, but the effect was not unlike coming off drugs.  Something in the air?  He sniffed.  Nah.  
   
Maybe it was just that places like this – these Empires built on blood and warfare – always made him uneasy.  And rightly so.  The Doctor rather liked his head.  It was the only one he had; he’d rather it didn’t get chopped off.  It was unnerving to have death threatened in one breath and to be referred to as a dear citizen in the next.  Ah, well, they always learnt their lesson in the end.  Civilizations like this could go on for, oh, 1229 years (not naming any names here), but they just about always met a sticky end.  Like Dardanus, poor Dardanus, on the left-hand side of the Teucrian Complex.  It had petered itself out in less than 50 years.  Poor Dardanus, the mayfly of all cover version civilizations.  
   
But still, he wasn’t in Dardanus (maybe one day, he thought).  He was in the mint condition first edition!  Early imperial Rome, all pomp and ceremony.  They still had lions in Europe, didn’t they?  This was exciting.  The Doctor would go out looking for one before the colosseum games wiped them all out.  He’d do the proper tourist thing, if he could.  And speaking of tourism, a major attraction was coming into his line of vision.  
   
The Doctor could see the sedan entering the Imperial Palace, a rather charming monolith of white marble.  He figured that he had better do the same, if he wanted to ever know what was going on.  He milled for a few minutes at the stalls surrounding the circus maximus.  He liked these.  They were like a precursor to the little shop.  Eventually, after several millennia – it was actually ten minutes, but the Doctor said ‘thousand’ after every breath in an effort to check himself, so it was practically true – he allowed himself to enter.

The guards eyed him suspiciously as he entered.  Fair enough, he was the archetypal mad foreigner.  As he drew close to the grand entrance, the largest of their number held up a ham-hock like hand.  “Halt!” he said. “What business do you have here?”  
   
The Doctor passed him the psychic paper.  “John Smith, head physician to the court of Britannia.  You might have heard me mentioned earlier – I’m one of those ‘wisest men’, but you know, I don’t like to brag about it.”  
   
“Britannia?” the guard said, his voice doubtful.  “I thought you were all savages.  Howling at the moon and all that.”  
   
“I heard they shag sheep,” chipped in a smaller guard from the back.  
   
“Not me.”  The Doctor shook his head.  “Makes us ripe for diseases though.  That’s where I come in!”  
   
“Hmm,” the largest guard was still squinting at the psychic paper.  “Well, me, mate, I think you’re some sort of weirdo – I mean, look at you, you’re practically naked –”  
   
“I’m completely clothed!”  
   
“In Britannia, maybe. They’re letting all sorts of riff-raff in these days, aren’t they, lads?”  
   
 “I promise I’m of the finest stock.  Though I’d look out for the Goths and Vandals, if I were you.”  
   
“You what?”  
   
“Ah – nothing, never mind.  Can I get in?  Please?  I would hate for the Emperor to die as a result of casual xenophobia.”  The Doctor was growing exasperated with these classical bouncers.  
   
The guard shrugged.  “Don’t know why you bother asking, mate.  That’s Helicon’s signature there.  This place is practically as good as yours.  Though if it were up to me –“  
   
“But it’s not.  Thanks for the hostility!”  The Doctor moved past the bouncers, still grumbling amongst themselves, and into the main building.  He followed the raised voices echoing through the lofty halls until he found himself in a large and busy room.  The young man that the Doctor has seen at the parade was standing in the middle, barking orders at all those surrounding.  
   
“You there, boy!  More hot towels!  Tibertus, any sign of Caeculus?”  
   
A scared looking youth replied, “No, Helicon, his wife said he was holidaying in Lemnon.”  
   
Helicon scoffed.  “Well, of course she would. Lemnon!  What’d he go there for?  The fucking scenery?”  He fixed the youth with a steady gaze.  “I hoped you checked the cupboards.”  
   
“No, Helicon.”  
   
“Well, go back and check the bloody cupboards.  I know what he’s doing.  He doesn’t know what’s going on.  The best physician in the Roman Empire, and he’s bloody clueless.”  He sighed and ran his fingers through his long hair.  “It’s my fault, really,” he reflected.  “I shouldn’t have told him that I’d get his head cut off if he couldn’t fix Caligula.  But I’d expect better from him.  Lemnon!  At this time of year!’  He noticed that the youth was still there, watching him as if unsure whether or not it was safe to leave in the middle of his monologue.  “What are you waiting for, boy?  Fucking go!”  He pointed to the door, where his gaze fell upon the Doctor.  
   
He raised an eyebrow.  “Okay, I appreciate that we’re all a little stressed, but is this really the best time to be ordering in whores?  Although,” he said, giving the Doctor a thorough going over with his eyes, “he’s not half bad.  Maybe come back tomorrow night, love.”  
   
“I’m not, I’m not – Look, I’m a number of things – very useful things to you, as it so happens – but I’m not a prostitute, I swear!”  The Doctor strode over and showed Helicon his physic paper.  “John Smith, head physician to the court of Britannia.  You requested my expertise, remember?”  
   
Helicon furrowed his brow.  “I did?  Well, I must have done – that’s definitely my signature, I don’t remember…”  He fixed an angry glare at the Doctor.  “This must have been fucking months ago!  Where have you been?”  
   
The Doctor shrugged.  “The postal service these days, I don’t know.  I’ll make a complaint the minute I get back.”  
   
Helicon was looking at him strangely.  “Why would I ask Britannia?  You do all kinds of weird things, don’t you?  Like dancing naked around trees on moonlit nights?”  
   
“Only in the mating season.  It predisposes us to fevers of the brain, you know, which is why I’m so very useful.”  
   
“Huh. I think… Are you the one that’s had this sort of thing before?  The one I heard about… Somewhere?”  
   
“Oh yes,” the Doctor beamed.  “Absolutely.  That’s me.  You must have heard about one of our princes, Daffyth – thought he was a cat?  Lived in a tree for two weeks, eating only raw blackbirds?”  
   
Helicon just looked at him blankly.  
   
“I know, the state of journalism, it’s shocking.  Well, it was me that got him down, and now he doesn’t think he’s a cat at all.  Well, most of the time – I mean, we have out breakouts every now and again, but we just keep him away from the furniture.  Anyway, I saw the Ma – Caligula – at the parade, and I’ve seen that sort of thing before.  I’m sure I can help him if you’ll give me a chance.”  The Doctor saw that Helicon’s face was impassive.  “Please,” he said earnestly.  “You’ve got to let me help him. I might be the only hope you’ve got. Please let me.”  
   
Helicon exhaled slowly.  “Fuck it,” he said.  “What else am I going to do?  I must have contacted you for a reason.  Our own head physician is hopeless, and all the other doctors in Rome have conveniently buggered off.  Alright,” he said, nodding to the exit.  “You’d better come with me.”  
  
  



	3. Aegri Somnia

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Doctor is in Rome, the emperor has a familiar face, and something is very, very wrong. In this episode! The Doctor goes dream-walking.

  
Helicon led the Doctor down a long hallway.  It was, the Doctor noticed, really nice.  It was all grand mosaics, gold and lapis lazuli, rather elaborate pot plants.  Nice digs the Master had got himself here.

“Did I introduce myself properly in the letter?”  Helicon said abruptly.  Without waiting for a reply, he answered,  “I’m Helicon, Caligula’s right hand man.  I do all his dirty work”

The Doctor wondered if this was a euphemism, but decided he had been spending too much time with Captain Jack.  “How long has the Emperor been ill?” he asked.

“Oh, a month or so now,” said Helicon.  “It started off as these headaches, then he started saying all these really weird things –“

“Like what?”

“Does it matter?  They were the ramblings of a madman, surely of no consequence”

The Doctor raised an eyebrow.  “You’d be surprised at what the ramblings of a madman can indicate.  Please, can you remember?”

Helicon thought for a few seconds.  “I can’t really remember.  Always something about a key.  But every young man dreams of keys and locks, no?  Ah, here we are!”

Ah, the good old days, minds unsullied by Freud.  They had reached a great door, heavy and of dark wood.  Helicon banged on it loudly, yelling through, “Galaesus, you doddering old fool!  We’re coming in now!  Better look useful!”

They entered an opulent room, draped with dark, luxurious fabrics.  It was incredibly hot – the Doctor felt like he was entering a sauna.  The room was nearly entirely taken up with a huge bed, the Master lying in its center.

His old friend looked so small in this great expanse of bedding, twitching and turning like a dreaming dog.  The Doctor swallowed heavily.  He was used to seeing the Master as all-powerful.  He had never had so much as a sniffle on board the Valiant.  Now here he was, pale and sweating in his skimpy tunic, defenses down and so very vulnerable.

An older man was sitting on the edge of the bed, wringing his hands and looking worried.

“Ah, Galaesus!  I would ask if you had anything to report, but as it’s you, I know better,” Helicon turned to the Doctor.  “This is Galaesus, our supposed head physician, Mr… What was it?”

“Smith.  But I’d rather you just call me Doctor, really.  It’s a strange Britannia custom – we address each other by our titles.  You know, Doctor, Farmer, Postman.  It gets confusing when there’s a recession on, I can tell you – hundreds of men all called Unemployed.  But, uh….” The Doctor shook his head.  Seeing the Master had made him feel strange.  “Sorry, I’m rambling.  Nice to meet you, Galaesus.”  He held out his hand to greet the older man.

Helicon slapped his hand away.  “Don’t act as if he’s your equal, Doctor. The man doesn’t know his arse from his elbow.  How he ever got into this profession is beyond me.”  He shook his head as the old man cringed.  “Why is it so bloody hot in here?  Trying to set fire to him, hope that’ll make your job easier?”

Galaesus bit his lip.  “I’m hoping to sweat out the fever, Helicon.”

“Ooh, cutting edge medicine there.  Get out, you prime example of incompetence – we have a real professional in our midst.  I wouldn’t want to make you feel insecure.”

Galaesus left, head down and cringing.  Helicon sighed.  “Useless twat.  Anyway, I suppose you’d better have a look at Caligula – do you need him undressed?”

The Doctor gulped.  “No, Helicon. It’s the head that’s troubled.”

“Ah, sure you do.  How can treat him otherwise?” said Helicon as he got to work.  The Doctor eyed the ceiling determinedly.  “I thought I was the doctor here,” he muttered to himself.  “Could you get a window open?”  Humans and their feverish heat.  The Doctor, with his cool Time Lord physiology, felt like a pot-bound lobster.  This couldn’t be helping the Master.

“Of course, and Doctor – did I mention Caligula’s, um, unique condition in my letter?”

The Doctor shook his head slowly.  “No,” he said.  “You must have forgotten that.”

“Ah.  Well.  Come here.”  Helicon motioned the Doctor to the bedside, where he guided his hand to the Master’s chest.  The skin there was cool and clammy.  The Doctor shivered.  “There,” Helicon said.  “You feel a heartbeat?”

“Yes.”  The Doctor did.  It was fast, far too fast, a hummingbird’s wing in this narrow chest.  He knew what coming next.

Helicon guided his hand over to the other side of his chest.  “And here?” he whispered, gaze heated.

“Another heartbeat,” the Doctor nodded.

“You do not seem surprised,” said Helicon, voice low and suspicious.

“We had something like this in Britannia – I know, what are the odds?  Another prince, Huw, he was born with two hearts, and he suffered from the same thing, if I’m not mistaken, which I very rarely am.”

“And he was cured?”

“Oh yes.  Everything’s tickety-boo upstairs.  He went mad after he commanded an army – the pressure, you know.  I think the same thing may have happened with our man here.  The power, the pressure, the twin hearts doubling the, uh, fragile passions of the patient.  But it can be fixed.”

Silence then, as Helicon processed the information.  The Doctor could feel the Master’s heart fluttering under his fingers, and he scarcely dared to breathe.

“Very well,” Helicon said eventually.  “But know, Doctor, that this is strictly classified information.  Breathe one word of this to anyone, and I will personally have your head mounted on my wall.”

“I believe you, Helicon.  I’ll take this to my grave, promise.”

“You’d better.  Trust me, Doctor, we’ve killed better men for lesser crimes.”  He squeezed the Doctor’s hand hard, and then withdrew to a low chair next to the bed.  “Well,” he said. “Get to work, then.”

The Doctor hesitated.  “I’m so sorry, Helicon, and this is going to seem to very rude, but I can’t do this with you in the room.”

Helicon drew himself up.  “Why ever not?” he demanded.  “I’ve just met you.  I’m not about to leave you alone with the emperor of fucking Rome!”

The Doctor sighed.  “It’s just… It can get dangerous.  I once treated Huw with his dad standing next to me.  Huw woke up, thought that I’d multiplied myself, and ended up trying to scratch out his eyeballs.  Bad day.”

“I don’t fucking care what happened in Britannia.  This is Rome, and this is the Roman Emperor, and I’m not leaving you alone with him.  I’m sorry, Doctor, but you’ll just have to manage with me here.”  He flopped down back down on the chair.

The Doctor bit his lip.  “Okay, Helicon.  Just trust me, okay?”

“Me?  I’ll believe anything.  We’ve had all sorts of things in here, trying to make him better.  There was that bloke with the snakes.  That was weird.  And then there were the dancers.  They were fun,” he smiled.  “Made fuck-all difference, though, as you can see.”

“Hmm. Helicon?”

“Yeah?”

“I say this with the utmost respect, but shut up now.”

“Okay.  Sorry, sorry.”

The Doctor climbed onto the bed, and knelt next to the Master’s sleeping form.  “I’m going to massage his temples. It seems a bit basic, I know, but I think it’ll help.”  Helicon nodded.

The Doctor placed his fingers at either side of the Master’s forehead.  His patient was still in deep slumber, eyes twitching in R.E.M delirium.  He took a deep breath to steady himself.  This was terrifying, this was wrong, this shouldn’t be happening.  Oh well.

The Doctor dipped in lightly, shutting his eyes and inhaling.  He was in the Master’s dream.

He was in some sort of ghastly forest.  Dying trees surrounded him, their tall trunks ringed with mist.  It was unpleasant, but still entirely too PG to be the brainchild of the Master.  Were the trees made out of dead people or something?  He inspected one.  Nah.  This had to be a decoy.  This wasn’t a dream.  This was a sodding cliché.

The Doctor noticed a gaping cave some distance away.  He was took a step towards it and then immediately was standing at its entrance.  Dream timing, _gah_.  The Doctor hated it.  It was like wading through a vat of very slippery margarine.  _Get it off, get it off._   The cave was yawningly wide, opening onto an eerily still black lake.  The Master – or his psychic self - was sitting in the shallows, dripping wet and shivering.  He stared at the Doctor as he approached.  The Doctor halted and stared right back.  It was a staring competition of the first order.

What to say?  What words to use after all the pain, the deaths, the loss, the endless hullabaloo that was their relationship?  The Doctor couldn’t begin to articulate the veritable Tiber of oh-so-precious human bloody feelings that ran through him at this moment.

So he said “Um.”

The Master blinked, and then said.  “Are you the key?”

“The key?  What?”

The Master sighed and looked away.  “Well, if you don’t know, you can’t be, can you?”

“I, I – _What_?  Look, what on earth are you doing?  You drag me all this way with your little note, and your little well timed fit, and now I’ve got you, and what do you have to say?  Oh hello, I’ve got this great new evil plan, would you like to tag along?  No, you ask me if I’m a bloody key.  _Do I look like a bloody key_?” he bellowed.  “No, apparently I look like a prostitute. And that’s wrong, but not nearly as wrong as you looking like you’re alive, when you went and died.  I saw you.  And I mean, how?  Look at you.  Same face and everything.  You can’t have regenerated.  You can’t be here!  You’re like some kind of Jesus cockroach.”

The Master merely blinked at the outburst.  “I have no idea what you’re talking about, but you do look a bit like a prostitute.”

“Oh, for the love of –."  The Doctor kicked a cave wall.  “Ow!  This a dream cave.  It’s not supposed to hurt!  And what do you mean, you don’t know what I’m on about?  Do I have to tell you the story?”  He hopped over to the Master and leant down next to him.

“This is how it goes,” he hissed.  “You, me – friends once, very good friends, a very long time ago.  Then you went and became a complete genocidal nutcase, and you wouldn’t let me help you, even when I asked you nicely.  The Time War, remember?  And all the highly amusing escapades before and after, where you found new and creative ways to try to kill me, and everything I loved?  The most recent of which ended with you dying in these very arms?  You can’t have just had that spontaneously fall out of your head.”

The Master looked utterly bewildered.  “I’m sorry, I really am, but your words are completely foreign to me.  Time War?”

“Yes, the bloody Time War!  With the Daleks and the explosions and everyone dying?”  The Master shook his head.  “You mean you genuinely have no idea?”

“I swear.  If I tried to kill you, I’m very sorry, as I’ve never seen you before in my life.  Well, I saw you at the parade – I thought it was scandalous that you were out so early in the day.  I thought, yeah, Ladies of the Late Afternoon, but this is a bit far.”  The Doctor rolled his eyes.  “I’m sorry, but it is true.  Though it reflects badly on me, I suppose.  I’m the one dreaming about rentboys.”

“You know that this is a dream?”  Well, that was unusual.

“Dream, reality, does it make any difference?”  He ran his hand through the water.  “They say I’m going mad, and I can’t disagree.  I seem to spend far more time here than I do in Rome.  I always wake up in bed, so it makes sense, doesn’t it?”

“So you go here when you fall asleep?”

The Master shrugged.  “Sometimes, I suppose.  I came here today… After I saw you at the parade, actually.  That makes sense – it’s why you’re here, I suppose.  It’s quite nice.  I’ve never had anyone in my cave before.” He smiled lecherously.  “Is this dream going to get interesting now?”

“No, no, and no!” the Doctor spluttered.  “Don’t even – don’t you dare!  You cannot drag me all the way here for a bit of flirtation.  Enough!  I’m not even listening to this rubbish anymore!  You’re coming with me!”

He took the Master by the hand and the pair of them jumped – as much as dreams and memories can be jumped between – into a memory of the Doctor’s.  It was one he had steadfastly avoided for months, but oh, it was there all right, intact and shiny deep within his psyche.

They were standing on the deck of the Valiant, a light breeze ruffling their hair.  Acrid smoke burned the Doctor’s eyes.  It was no ordinary fire below them.  No, this was the great blaze of Japan.  Hokkaido seemed black against the disarmingly calm blue sea surrounding it, and the Doctor could make out swarms of Toclafane zapping around, shooting at the small vessels desperately trying to make their way out.

“Remember this,” the Doctor asked.  “Japan? The Great Teriyaki Bonfire, as you would later call it?”  He turned the Master, only to see him clutching onto the railings as if for dear life.

“How is it that we are in midair and not plunging to our deaths?” he squeaked.

The Doctor crossed his arms.  “Don’t get cute with me.”

“I am aware that this is a dream, but I have never known one to feel so real,” the Master muttered.  “Such is life as a madman, I suppose.”  He turned to face the Doctor, but got caught up in the image of his doppelganger standing through the glass doors behind him.

“That’s, _that’s me_!” he gasped.  “How can this be?  I’m dressed like you!  Oh dear,” he frowned.  “Am I a prostitute, too?  Is that the sort of thing I’m dreaming about now?”

“Oh, you’re bloody impossible!  Come on!”  And then they were somewhere else completely.

Dual beams of sunlight glinted off the Citadel of the Time Lords.  They were reflected back onto the simmering hillside of gloriously orange trees, silver leaves catching the bright orange light.  The Doctor didn’t let himself remember this too much.

The Master was turning in circles, trying to take it all in.

“Remembering now,” asked the Doctor, his voice acidic.

“That hill appears to be on fire.  Is it?  Are those trees?  What extreme autumn is this?”  The Master was grinning like a lunatic.  “This is a fantastic dream.  I could dream like this every night!”

“You cannot be serious.”

“Oh, but I am.”  The Master looked at him with something like pity.  “You seem perfectly nice – well, no actually, you’ve been really rather rude – but you seem to want me to be someone else.  I don’t know who you are, but I know that I’m Gaius Germanicus.  Some call me Caligula, some call me the late Caligula, and some call me a lunatic, these days.  But hear me, good sir – see, I don’t even know your name – when I say that no one has ever associated me with any of the magic you have shown me in this strange dream.  I can prove it.  If you can walk amongst dreams and memories, so can I.”

The Doctor’s head swum as the vista swirled and changed to become a windswept field dotted with makeshift tents.  A small boy was running amongst them, cheering his wee head off.

“My shoes!  My shoes!  I am just like you, a soldier!  I will protect Rome with all my might, and my hearts, and my shoes!  Shoooooes!”

An uneasy laugh sounded from the woman following him.  “Gaius!” she called. “Don’t disturb the soldiers.  They need their rest!  And don’t mention the you-know-what!”

The Master turned to the Doctor.  “You see?” he said.  “This is who I am.  A little boy with a fondness for shoes, later the emperor of Rome.  I am sorry, Doctor, so sorry, but I’m not the man that you seem so desperate to find.”

“Doctor?”

“Hmm?”

“You called me Doctor.  I never mentioned my name.  You didn’t know it half a minute ago, but you seem to have picked it up somewhere.”

“Doctor?  That’s not a name.  That’s a title.”  The Master shook his head.  “I don’t know. You must look like a doctor or something.”

“But I don’t.  I – bloody hell – look like a prostitute.  You said so yourself.”  The Doctor grabbed the Master by the shoulders and brought their faces so close that their noses were almost touching.  “Don’t you see?  You know me.  And that you-know-what the woman mentioned?  That was this, wasn’t it,” he asked, placing his hand over the Master’s extra heart.  The Master nodded once, almost imperceptibly.  “How could a human be born with two hearts?  How could you know my name like that?  I’m not wearing a nametag, am I?  'Hello, I’m the Doctor, you killed my friends, prepare to die'?”

“Stranger things have happened,” the Master cried, his voice anguished.  He broke away from the contact and sulked away.  “What am I doing?  Arguing with a dream?”

“But I’m not a dream!  This is real!  I’m real!  It’s all in there!  Look!”  The Doctor left the dream and began to flick through the Master’s memories, like a film on fast forward.

Well, this was unexpected.  There were memories here, real, honest-to-god memories, not the product of a Chameleon Arch or anything similar.  There was the topsy-turvy view of a young child, excited to be watching games at the Circus Maximus.  There was the moody adolescent perspective, lonely on a rocky beach.  There was the feverish state of a young man, on a couch with a young woman – and ok, ok, don’t need to see that, thank you.  But the Doctor dug a little deeper, and oh!  There we go!  London, 2008, through the eyes of Harold Saxon.  Squinting against the flares of photography at a press conference.  Eating jelly babies while the American President pontificated.  Oh, and Lucy, of course… It always ended up back there, didn’t it?

“Dreams,” the Master murmured, from next to him.  “Flickers of the most peculiar things.  I’ve had them ever since childhood.”

“They’re not!  They’re – look!  Look!  There’s me!”  The Doctor had found a particularly interesting memory, him floating above the Master in a cloud of sparkly forgiveness ectoplasm.

“Yes, that’s you.  A man from one dream finds himself in another; this is hardly heart-stopping stuff.  And he appears to be floating in mid-air, which just proves my point.  Enough.  I’m not arguing with a dream.  I’m going back to my cave.  The cave doesn’t argue.”

They found themselves back at that infernal cave.  The Doctor paced back and forwards in frustration.  “Something’s going on here, and I don’t like it.  You’re you – how could you be anyone else?  But you don’t know you’re you, which means that something’s up.  You’re either acting – and you’re good at that, I’ll grant you, but I know you better than I know myself – better than you know yourself right now!  Ha!  Ha!  Or something-slash-someone has done this to you, and that’s not good, that’s not good at all, it’s downright bad, in fact – and what’s going on?”

The ground was rumbling beneath their feet with an almighty bellow.  The trees behind were lurching and parting, and the infernal cave seemed to be growing infernally wider.

This could be a number of things, but it certainly wasn’t good, the Doctor reckoned.

“What’s going on?” he repeated, his voice coming out sounding far more frightened than he intended.

The Master turned to him, eyes alight and jubilant.  “It’s happening!  It’s finally happening!  The key!  You’re the key!  Oh, thank you, Doctor, how can I ever thank you?”  He ran forward and planted a brief kiss on the Doctor’s lips, before turning away to run into the growing, cavernous darkness.

“Oh no, you don’t,” the Doctor cried.  He concentrated with all his might.  Something about this was giving him a very bad feeling.  This dream was creepy on about seventeen different levels, but more worryingly, its parameters bloody _hurt_.  The Doctor would investigate this at some later date, he promised himself, when it wasn’t about to swallow up the Master.

The dream flickered at the edges, before folding in on itself completely like a piece of parchment set alight.  The Master’s psychic self disappeared along with it.  The Doctor was left alone in the gallery of the Master’s mind.  Best get out of there.

*

The return to reality was a shock.  The clammy heat of the room hit him immediately, and he blearily opened his eyes.

“I thought I asked you to open a window,” he croaked.

Helicon simply stared at him, mouth agape.  “What the fuck was that?”

The Doctor groaned.  “Therapy, Helicon.  The best of British.”  He looked down at his patient.  The Master was now in a calm slumber, completely still but for the rise and fall of his chest.

“I haven’t seen him like that in weeks,” Helicon whispered.  “That’s bloody amazing.  You were all –" he mimed manic shaking “- you both were, and then you just stopped.  And now he looks.…” His features softened.  “He looks like he used to.  I can’t thank you enough, Doctor.  Rome can’t thank you enough.”  He grabbed the Doctor as he stepped off the bed and kissed him firmly.

“Hmmph,” the Doctor said.  They seemed to go in for that here, didn’t they?

Blushing, he stumbled back from Helicon as soon as he was released.  “I, um, thank you, Helicon.  But it’s early days yet.  I don’t know how he’ll be when he wakes.”

“Then you must stay,” Helicon said simply.  “You must stay and oversee his recovery.  We’ll arrange a room for you, and some decent clothes – you can’t keep on wearing that, unless you’re planning a second job.”

Stay here?  For how long?  The Doctor found himself getting panicky.  He had universes to save, unnamed companions to whisk away.  It was the Master, yes, but oh god, could he put himself through all that again?  “That’s very kind, Helicon, but I – “

“It’s not a request, Doctor,” said Helicon, voice silky with a hint of menace.  “When the Roman Emperor needs you, you clear your fucking schedule. Got it?”

The Doctor sighed.  He didn’t really have a choice.  It was foolish to think it had ever been otherwise.

“Alright then.”  He held out his hand for Helicon to shake.  “You’ve got me. I’m yours.”

Helicon smiled as they shook hands.  “You won’t regret this.  Rome will remember you forever.”

The Doctor grimaced.  “Infamy!  Infamy!  They’ve all got it in for me!”

Helicon looked puzzled.  “What?”

“A joke from Britannia.  You had to be there”, the Doctor said.  “So where am I staying?  I’m knackered.”

The two left the room.  The Doctor made a real effort not to steal one last glance at the figure on the bed behind him.  It was much to his credit, he thought, that he came very close indeed to succeeding.

 


	4. Quid Agis

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Doctor is in Rome, the emperor has a familiar face, and something is very, very wrong. In this episode! The Emperor wakes up, and plays a game of word association.

An odd quirk of this regeneration, the Doctor thought, was that he was unable to stand bad tailoring. It spoke volumes about the situation at hand that he was willing to leave behind his smart suit – folded neatly at the foot of his luxurious bed – to wear something that was essentially a glorified bedsheet. Being a time traveler made one a tad cynical about fashion and its cycles (nobody is ever really wise to throw out a good pair of harem pants), but the Doctor was glad that, save for a brief revival in ill-fated Dardanus, the toga had never made a proper comeback.

“Does it fit, Doctor?” asked Helicon from behind him, lounging as he was against a wall.

“Well no, but that’s rather the point, isn’t it?” The Doctor grimaced. “I’m practically swimming in this. It doesn’t even have pockets! All this utterly superfluous material, and I can’t even save a snack for later!”

“But, looking on the bright side, you barely look like a barbarian at all,” Helicon smiled. “I’m almost proud. How hard are you on your clothes? I’ll need to order a few, plus some tunics for your off days.”

“As many as you possibly can.” The Doctor knew how the Romans washed their clothes, and he’d take sweat-stains over urine and dead hedgehogs any day.

“Sure thing. It really does suit you, you know. I mean, I liked what you had before – “ His eyes raked over the Doctor. _Bloody hell_. “But it was hardly civilized, was it? I mean, how did you ever get on with anything?”

“Slowly,” the Doctor rolled his eyes. “With a lot of bending over.”

Helicon’s eyes widened. “God, really? I need a holiday.” He left, muttering to himself about invasions. Ah, so this was how it all began. Not with a metaphorical bang, to completely paraphrase T.S Eliot, but with a whimper.

The Doctor wriggled. He was uncomfortable in this thing. It made him feel like a great big heffalump, and furthermore, it itched – uncomfortably so. Could the Doctor be naughty and invent fabric softener 2000 years early? Best not. Who knew how it would react with urine and dead hedgehogs?

Anyway, he wouldn’t be in Rome long enough to let this ridiculous get-up bother him. No sirree bob, he’d be out of here long before whatever evil plan was afoot had a chance to gestate into the merest glimmer in the postman’s eye. Yep, that was certainly the order of things. No doubt about it. So, the little niggling voices at the back of the Doctor’s head, the ones saying entirely unhelpful things like: _You’re going to be here for an incredibly long time, as something is very wrong, and you’re the only one that can stop it. Not only that, but you’re actually pleased to see him again, aren’t you? You think that you can fix him, and that you’re going to ride yaks into the sunset, or something equally ridiculous. Hmm? Isn’t that the case?_ Well, those voices could just hush if they didn’t have anything helpful to say.

The Doctor crossed his room, shaking his head he did so. He decided that he wasn’t going to let himself get into a fit of self-pity. He could do that on the TARDIS any old time, and he had the whole of Rome at his feet. This was quite a literal statement, with the city sprawling below his bedroom, high on the Palatine hill. Rome was in a ferment of activity, its citizens like worker bees amongst the labyrinth of villas and insulae. If he stood on tippy toes, he could make out the market place near the Forum, the one where he had parked himself yesterday. He fancied he could see the shock of blue amongst the browns and creams of the city. He gave a small wave, not feeling daft at all.

“Who do you wave to, Doctor? No one can see into your window.”

The Doctor turned. There in his doorway was Galaesus, the allegedly incompetent physician he had met last night.

“Oh, a friend, the gods, anyone! It’s considered good luck where I’m from to wave when nobody’s looking, and look totally surly when they are.”

Galaesus peered at him from under unruly eyebrows. “You say the strangest things, Doctor. Out of context, I’d consider you a madman.”

The Doctor beamed. “Well, I know all about madmen, Galaesus. Up to my ears in them, aren’t I?"

Galaesus gave a grim smile. “Aren’t we all?”

The Doctor nodded. “They seem to be in season”.

“And yet, I hear whispers in the hallways and in darkened corners – only whispers, nobody tells me anything these days – they say that the Emperor has been cured!”

“Is that so?”

Galesus nodded quickly. “Furthermore, they say it was done by a wanton-looking foreigner, a man who dressed like – “

“Yes, yes, I can quite imagine, thank you!”

“Is it true? Did you manage to fix him?” Galaesus asked, his voice full of apprehension.

The Doctor sighed. “I don’t know if he’ll ever be fixed,” he said, mostly to himself. “But he’s out of his fever, yes. It’s early days yet, mind.”

“How did you do it?” Galaesus asked. “I tried everything, everything I knew and could think of, but it was all useless. I’ve looked after him since he was a boy, Doctor, I should have been able to help him.”

The Doctor shrugged. “Royal secrets of Britannia, Galaesus. I’d tell you, but the Queen Mum would probably want a word. You say you saw him as a child?”

Galaesus’ face lit up. “Oh yes. I’ve been with the family since Antium. He was such a lovely child, bright and full of wonder. He’s a fine young man now – he always has been, and I’ll stick by that. There are those that say things, things about what happened at Capreae, but they’re wrong, all of them.”

This sounded interesting. “Capreae? What happened at Capreae?”

“Nothing happened at Capreae,” said a voice from behind them. Helicon had entered silently and was staring at Galaesus with a look of pure hatred. “Nothing ever happened at Capreae. Isn’t that right, Galaesus?”

Helicon struck the old man down before he had a chance to answer. Galaesus fell, clutching his face and gasping. Helicon loomed over him, eyes dark and nostrils flared.

“If I hear you mention that sodding island again, I’ll have you exiled there for the rest of your miserable life, and your descendants sold into slavery,” he snarled.

“You can’t, Helicon, and you know it.” Galaesus muttered, face to the floor, picking himself up.

“You mean that I can’t at the fucking moment,” Helicon replied in a sing-song voice. “We’ve finally got a doctor here that earns his keep.” He shot a glance in the Doctor’s direction. “You’ve been lucky, Galaesus, but your luck can only last so long.”

Galaesus scowled but stayed wisely silent. Helicon shook his head. “You’ve got me all distracted,” he muttered. “ I hate when that happens. I was perfectly fine before. It’s all your fault for being a useless twat, Galaesus. Um, anyway, where was I? Oh yes!” He clapped his hands together. “Caligula’s up!”

*

The imperial bedroom was very crowded by the time that they reached it. Men in togas – the Doctor took satisfaction in noting that no-one looked smart in one – stood awkwardly around the bedside. Three pretty young women with remarkably similar features sat on the bed, while another leaned against the wall, the expression sour on her markedly different face.

The Master sat resplendent in the middle of his small empire, the eye in this small storm of concern. He’d been brought breakfast in bed, and he was getting crumbs all down himself. He was very much conscious, chatting animatedly with the woman nearest him.

“And then, Drusilla, I think we should continue in Germania.”

Drusilla laughed. “So ambitious, brother! Let’s save the big plans for when we’ve gotten out of bed, shall we?”

The Master pouted. “But surely, Drusilla, the bed is a wonderful place for us to rule an empire from!”

“Ahem,” Helicon stood up on his toes to get the Emperor’s attention. He did as, however reluctantly, the Master turned slowly to face him. “Yes, Helicon?”

“I bring Mr. John Smith, sir, the man who attended to you last night,” Helicon said, bowing slightly and then standing back.

“Come, Helicon, there’s no need for all this formality! Today is a joyous occasion. I feel like a new man! What use have I for men of medicine?” he asked, popping a grape into his mouth. Speaking through his mouthful, he continued. “It was the gods that pulled me back from the brink of insanity to revel in all the pleasures that this world has to offer.”

He leered at Drusilla, and the Doctor shuddered. If his grasp of Roman history was good – and let’s face it, it was very good – it was around now that Caligula went from being mostly harmless to totally bonkers. And bonkers was fine, bonkers could be almost charming in it’s own weird way – the Doctor had met Nero, and he had been a laugh (of sorts) – but the Master wasn’t bonkers. The Master went above and beyond bonkerdom. And even that was – well, it was almost fine, it could be fine, if things went to plan. No, the really worrying thing was that the man in the bed in front of him looked different from the man he had seen in the sedan yesterday. That man had looked genuinely benign; this man had a definite glint of cruelty in his eyes. And the way he was leering - the Doctor knew that leer only too well.

Helicon was hissing something in his ear. “Go on,” he muttered. “We don’t fucking daydream when we’re being introduced to the Emperor of Rome. God, you’re just as bad as that twat Galaesus.” He pushed the Doctor towards the bed. He stumbled slightly, before standing up straight and looking the Master straight in the eye.

The Master regarded him coolly. “So, you’re the prized expert on heads, are you? You seem to have lost your own in the clouds, I daresay,” he said, snickering. “We have one dreamer in our medical team already. You make no secret of your distaste for Galaeus, Helicon, but you seem to have started a collection here.”

Helicon glared at the Doctor. “He’s all out of sorts from his long journey, I expect.”

The Master raised his eyebrows. “Journey? From where do you hail, Mr. Smith?”

“Just the Doctor, please, Emperor,” the Doctor said. “I’m from somewhere very far away, so far as to be said not to even exist anymore.” Ooh, _subtle_.

“Or Britannia, as some like to call it,” Helicon butted in, giving the Doctor an incredulous look.

“Hmm? Britannia. I’ve always wanted to take Britannia,” the Master said thoughtfully. “I’ve always thought it would be a jewel in our crown. Looking at you, though, I’m not so sure.”

“Please, Caligula,” said Helicon. “He is good. You weren’t yourself last night, and then he saw to you – and now, just look at you! You’re a new man!”

“Do not insult me, Helicon, by suggesting that this model could possibly be improved upon,” the Master said silkily. “Still, I trust your judgement. You have long told me that there was something rotten in the state of the care I’ve been receiving, and I am prepared to believe you.” He then turned back to the Doctor. “You may stay. I feel almighty this morning, and it is possible that you played some small part in it.”

“Thank you,” the Doctor muttered, stepping back. He felt like he held the key to a lunatic asylum. It was, he supposed, honorable to treat the Emperor of Rome, simultaneously making an attempt to bring his old friend into the fold of sanity, but the prospect of being his personal head-shrinker for months on end was somewhat daunting.

The Master gave him a small smile. “That’s right,” he crooned. “Dreamy head-doctor. So subservient. I rather like it. Wherever you picked him up from, Helicon, keep an eye on it. I feel a good _reshuffling_ coming on,” he said, rubbing his hands together. The men around his bedside looked at each other nervously, and the Doctor could have sworn he heard an audible gulp. The Master laughed. “Oh, there’s no need to worry. Many of you are family, and I could never spill my own blood, could I?” He shot a fond glance at Drusilla. “Besides,” he continued, “as long as you love me, and you love Rome, we should have no problems. Now, all of you, out! I expect my new doctor needs to do a re-assessment, and such things should generally be done in private.”

Everyone filed out dutifully, seeming eager to leave. One with a bad leg took longer than the others.

“Come on, dear uncle, it’s only a few yards, and then you can collapse in a pitiful heap outside, just so long as I don’t have to see you!’ the Master laughed. He turned to the resentful looking woman the Doctor had seen earlier, still leaning against the wall. “I’m sorry, Caesonia. Are you still here?”

Caesonia set her jaw. “I am your wife, Gaius. Your flesh is as mine. I should be here.”

The Master pulled a face. “Oh, I know all about your bloody flesh,” he muttered. “You’re just here to convince our new Doctor of your innocence in all this, I presume. What was it that Numicus said? Oh, yes.” He turned to the Doctor. “Excessively strong aphrodisiac. That’s what was causing the fever. Some women will go to any lengths.”

Caesonia sniffed. “There are several candidates in that scenario, Gaius,” she said, glancing slyly at Helicon.

The Doctor felt like he’d wandered into a classical soap opera. “Um, if now is a bad time, we can do this later,” he said hopefully.

The Master laughed. “Nonsense, Doctor. We will do this with or without the presence of my so-called wife. She will keep quiet , if she knows what’s good for her. So, what will it be? I daresay I’ve had every treatment known to man.”

“Oh, just some simple questions to get the synapses firing; then a nice game of word association,” the Doctor said, voice so fiercely cheerful as to be bordering on lunacy. He sat down on the edge of the bed. “So, first things – Emperor, do you know who I am?”

“You’re a doctor from Britannia. Your name is something foreign and unwieldy that I’ve already forgotten. You claim to be an expert on the workings of the mind, yet speak to me as though I am a child, when I am only, in fact, considered to be an invalid.”

The Doctor beamed at him. “Well done! If only I had a gold star! So you’ve never seen me before, ever?”

The Master shook his head, looking at him as if he was in idiot.

“Never ever?”

The Master shook harder.

“Not even in dreams?”

“My head is about to fall off with all this shaking, Doctor”.

“Well,” said the Doctor, keeping his voice cheery to mask his disappointment. “That’s the last thing we want. Ever heard of Prince Anton of Flange? Shook so his head so hard his brains flew out. And then his mother made him clean it up!”

Helicon guffawed. The Master glared at him. “That’s not even funny. Enough. I tire of these inane questions. On with the dreaded word association,” he said, flopping back heavily onto his bed.

“Cat?”

“Mouse.”

“Amphora?”

“Wine.”

“Pompeii?”

“Really big hill.”

“Might want to reconsider that. Umm… Tocalfane?”

Nothing. No flicker of recognition in those cruel eyes. The Master frowned. “That’s a made up word.”

“Exactly, Emperor. Okay, the furies?”

“Caesonia in the morning. Or any time of the day, really.” Caesonia scowled, and Helicon sniggered, much to the Master’s pleasure. “Well done, Helicon. That _was_ funny. Next!”

“Psychic?”

“Oracle.”

“Dalek?”

“Was that the one Alexander defeated at Gaugamela?” the Master asked. The Doctor cursed inwardly. If there was some sort of physic block up, trigger words didn’t seem to breaking through it.

“Not quite. Leonard Cohen?”

“King of Judea, no?”

“Arguably. Olive?”

“Oil.”

The Doctor paused. “Time war?”

“That’s two words, Doctor, and thus ineligible.”

Git. “Humour me.”

The Master rolled his eyes. “When two farmers throw herbs at one another.”

“I’m glad you find it funny,” the Doctor muttered. “Tardis?”

“Isn’t that where Dido’s from in the Aeneid? I don’t know. I despise Virgil. And I dislike these questions most intensely, Doctor. I feel that this is a pursuit of general knowledge, rather than a quest for sanity.”

“Ah, but you’re a clever man, Emperor. It’s for the best to keep your mind doing mental gymnastics, is it not? Just one more, please?”

“Fine,” the Master sighed petulantly.

The Doctor crossed his fingers. “Keys?”

“Locks? And do hush, Helicon. We all know your thoughts on the matter,” he said to his giggling chamberlain.

“That’s all? Keys?” the Doctor said, voice cracking in desperation. “Just locks? No cryptic messages, or ominous caves?”

“No, just a nice lock. What have you got against locks?”

The Doctor shook his head. “Sorry, in Britannia we regard them as instruments of the Devil. Tell me, what can you remember of your dreams over the last month?”

The Master thought for a moment. “Very little,” he eventually said. “I’m trying to cast my mind there, but it is as if a door is locked against my entering. A most peculiar thing.”

“You couldn’t – oh, I don’t know, batter it down with a spare ram, could you,” the Doctor asked hopefully.

“No,” said the Master, looking at the Doctor as if he was mad. “And furthermore, I have no desire to. I consider that period of madness a finished book in the epic poem that is my life. And now, I think you must go, Doctor. I grow weary of both consciousness and this inane conversation.” He turned over at buried his face in his pillow. “Go away,” he said, voice muffled. “All of you. Don’t even think of lying next to me, Caesonia, or I may have to vomit copiously on the conjugal bed, and that would be a real shame.”

The small group left him, laughing away softly into his pillow. Caesonia stalked ahead of the Doctor and Helicon, elegant dress fluttering behind her as she strode forwards.

“Doesn’t seem to like her much, does he? ” the Doctor asked, feeling slightly redundant.

Helicon was silent, unusually, eyes following the mosaic pattern on the floor.

“Helicon?”

“Hmm? Oh yes, well, I wouldn’t either,” Helicon muttered. “Mind you, he’s never been quite this….”

“Vitriolic?” the Doctor offered.

“If that means finally-seeing-sense-and-treating-her-how-she-deserves-to-be-treated, then yes.”

“Bit harsh, don’t you think?”

“Not at all, Doctor. How do you think the Roman Empire became so strong? It wasn’t by rolling over and offering peace treaties to Carthage. You have to be strong to survive, and go beyond that in order to actually do well. Caesonia has never proved herself worthy of anything other than contempt.”

“Ah, I see Ayn Rand has a time machine too,” the Doctor muttered.

“You may have your doubts, Doctor, but I’m right, and if you’re going to stay in Rome, you’ll do best to go by it. Take me, for example. I’m Greek, not even Roman. I’m the child of poverty – I’m told my father was a sailor, but I wouldn’t know him from Romulus. I can barely even read, I don’t know half the words you said back in there - and yet I’m the Emperor’s most trusted advisor. And why? Because I’m strong, Doctor. I’ll always survive.”

“Good to know, Helicon. I’ll do my best to stay on your good side!”tThe Doctor said, clapping him in the back with a hearty cheer he didn’t feel.

“Oh, you don’t need me, Doctor. Just get the Emperor in your favour,” he paused and grimaced. “Although – and I’m sorry to say this - he doesn’t seem to like you very much.”

“I’m shocked and dismayed,” the Doctor replied dryly.

“It’s really bloody weird,” Helicon continued, unlistening. “I mean, he’s been grumpy before, but he’s always been nice. Too nice. I’ve been telling him for ages that he needs to harden up – I mean, that amnesty for the exiles, now they’ll all think they can just walk over him. But he went, well, beyond grumpy in there. Or rather, it was like he was grumpy, but he was happy in his grumpiness”. He frowned. “Reminded me of myself a bit, actually. That’s how I’d talk if I was emperor.”

“I’m sure you would. So you say he’s changed?”

“Absolutely,” Helicon smiled. “And I think I like it."


	5. Cum Mortuis In Lingua Mortua

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Doctor is in Rome, the emperor has a familiar face, and something is very, very wrong. In this episode! The Doctor witnesses all shades of Roman life.

The Doctor had nothing against the year 38CE.  It was perfectly nice.  A lovely balmy summer, if he remembered correctly, although Christmas was going to be a bit of a let down.  No, it wasn’t anything personal (as such) against the year.  It was more that, in spite of the numerous pinky promises he’d made with himself, the Doctor was still in Rome to witness its dawning.

They didn’t have fireworks in 38CE either, but humans were nearly as good, the Doctor reckoned.  Not in a literal sense, of course – lighting people on fire wasn’t his bag at all (certain other unnamed renegade timelords, _well_ ), but dancing in the streets below the imperial palace, they seemed as bright as any pyrotechnical display.  The Doctor felt a bit like a pervert peeking into someone’s bedroom window – it was voyeuristic and wrong, the way he was letting himself hang around to watch their lives blossom and grow.  Sadly, he just couldn’t tear his eyes away - they were utterly fascinating, these Romans, so full of life.  And yet, they were so ancient, covered in dust by the standards of the 21st century humans that the Doctor had taken to surrounding himself with.  When you exist outside of the realms of time, who is alive, and who is dead?  Furthermore, who was the Doctor to judge?  He took a deep gulp of the unmixed wine in his goblet, and nearly choked.  This stuff was _strong_.

“What’s wrong, Doctor,” the Master called from across the balcony.  He was slow dancing with Drusilla, and had been for most of the night.  “I suppose they only drink fermented leek juice where you’re from?”

“No, it’s just, I-“ But the Master was away, spinning his sister across the makeshift dancefloor.  They were the only couple dancing, like a single spinning top moving on the marble tiles.  Everyone else stood back; their faces set in grim disapproval.  The Doctor knew that to accidentally bump the pair would be to put your job (at the very least) on the line, and no one present had any desire to live like Diogenes.

The Doctor, forgotten, turned back to his adopted city.  It was bad for someone like him, but he’d gotten rather attached to Rome.  He’d become a local, something he hadn’t experienced in – well, several hundred years, really.  He’d become familiar with the nooks and crannies, the stuff that someone just passing through misses out on.  There was this little shop in the wilds of Subura that the Doctor just adored.  They did the best little apple cakes that the Doctor had ever tasted in his very long life.  Helicon was fond of telling him that no one ever visited Subura unless they seriously liked being mugged, but the Doctor took the risk.  He’d tried to explain his enthusiasm to Helicon, but getting the wording right on “I’ve lived for 902 years, and I’ve never tasted tasty snacks like this _in my life_ ” always seemed to evade him.

This party wasn’t really a swinging one.  Most of the people present were notable Romans, supposedly honoured to be attending this gathering, but their body language implied otherwise.  They huddled in groups, brows furrowed and breath frosting.  There were a few outliers – the Doctor noticed Galaesus sitting alone next to a pot-plant, empty wine bottles scattered around him.  The other partygoers were giving him a wide berth, but the Doctor felt sorry for him.  He made his way over and sat down next to him.

“Hullo, Galaesus,” he said.  “Having a good party?”

The old man turned bleary eyes towards him.  “Huh,” he mumbled.  “What do you think?”

“I think that you’re having a brilliant time, and that pot-plants are underrated conversationalists.”

“You’re so funny, Doctor,” Galaesus said, taking a swig from the bottle.  “I wish I could be funny.”

“I’m sure you have it in you,” the Doctor smiled.

“Okay, okay,” said Galaesus, sitting up.  “I’ll tell you a joke.  A respected physician ends up a drunkard, his only company the greenery and a mad foreigner.  This physician kept the family secrets for years upon years, and he wakes up every morning in his old age with the threat of imminent execution hanging over him.  This physician stuck by the royal family, he didn’t run to the gossips, even after the birth, even after Capreae, even after… well, everything.” His eyes grew unfocused as his tirade lost steam.

The Doctor grimaced.  He hated to be dishonest to get information from a drunken old man, but when in Rome... “I’m afraid I don’t get the joke, Galaesus.  Went right over my head, it did.”

Galaesus frowned.  “What’s not to get?”

“Capreae.  People are making jokes about it all the time, and I just have to nod and smile like an idiot.  Every time I’m walking through the Forum, it’s all I hear – Two men walk into a bar, and then… Capreae!  Ha de ha ha, et cetera.  Except, you know, not for me.  I feel ever so sad about it, Galaesus.  It keeps me up at night.”

“That’s really not a very funny joke at all.”

“Maybe not for you, but I’ve got a strange sense of humour.  I laughed for two weeks straight over the death of Cleopatra.  Oh please, Galaesus, won’t you explain it to me?”

“No.”

“Please.  I’ll have a word with Helicon, get him to lay off you.” This would have about as much effect as asking a Dalek to take a course on racial sensitivity, he knew, but he didn’t really have much to bargain with.

“We both know how far that will go, Doctor.  But – oh! Where has loyalty gotten me so far?  And I suppose that you will end up being head physician once they dispose of me –”

“Now, Galaesus, I’m sure that’s not true,” the Doctor said, fingers crossed behind his back.

“Hush, Doctor.  I have started, and I want to finish before my courage deserts me.  Now, you know that the Emperor spent much of his youth on the island of Capreae, under the care of his uncle and predecessor, Tiberius?”

Well, he did now.  The Doctor nodded.

“Right, and you know how he died rather suddenly?”

This sounded more like it. “Mm-hmm.”

“It was, of course, completely natural.  He wasn’t the oldest of men, but he wasn’t the youngest either.  I saw him after his death, and I have absolutely no doubt that he was simply plucked from life by the will of the gods.”

“Okay.”

“Well, it’s just that Gaius behaved rather… strangely when we arrived at Capreae.”

The Doctor sat up, alert.  “How do you mean?”

“He was sitting there at the beach, all alone, rocking backwards and forwards, muttering the most peculiar things.”

“Like what?”

“All sorts of things.  It was the Furies, though, that he kept on bringing up.  Saying that the Furies had possessed him.  It was almost as if he held himself responsible for the death, but he can’t have done – Tiberius was unmarked, and there was no poison.”

The Doctor could barely breathe.  “The Furies?” he whispered.

“The very same.  Of course, he went back to normal after a few days.  They helped,” he said, nodding to a pair of young men across the balcony.  “Silanus and Gemellus.  They were also contenders for the role of Emperor, but you know how these things happen…”

“I see,” the Doctor said, blinking and shaking his head.  “That’s lovely, that’s really… great.  I get the joke now. Ha! Ha!”  Galaesus was looking at him funnily.  “I’ve had a bit much wine, I think I’m going to go… somewhere else, now…”  He made to stand up, when he noticed a tall figure looming over him.  Galaesus groaned.

“Doctor,” Helicon cried.  “You are such a noble breed – doing charity work on your night off!”

“We’re just having a professional talk, Helicon – medical matters and all that,” the Doctor said warily.

“That’s nice,” Helicon said, not really listening.  “Galaesus, you drunken old fool, why don’t you go kill yourself?”

Galaesus moved off, shoulders sagging in defeat.  Helicon chuckled to himself.  “I wonder if he will? I’d help, you know, if it would make the job easier.”

“Why are you such a bastard to him, Helicon,” the Doctor asked, getting to his feet.

“Because it’s fun,” said Helicon, helping him up.  “He’s hopeless, and I refuse to treat him like he isn’t.  Did you know, Doctor, that when Gaius was born, Galaesus didn’t pick up on him having two hearts?  Useless twat.”

“Well, it’s not the first thing you look for, is it?”

“I suppose not, but he maintains that there was only one when he first held him.  Ask him, sometime, before I get him fired.  His mother held him the morning after his birth, as you do, and that’s when it was discovered!  A woman could pick it up, but the imperial doctor - useless, I tell you.  Anyway, Galaesus swears that there was only one when he was delivered.  Like he grew an extra one overnight!  The fool!”

“That’s certainly… interesting.”  The Doctor bit a knuckle.

“Interesting that he managed to stay in the job for this long, yes.  Ooh, look, totty,” Helcion said, clapping his hands together and making his way to the dancefloor, where Drusilla had at last come free.

The Doctor sighed and made his way back to his ledge overlooking Rome.  He could, he fancied, see his TARDIS glinting at him from across the city, wishing him the best of luck and the blessing of Janus in the months to come.  Fat lot of good that was going to do.  The Doctor dug his hands in his pockets – he’d had a special set of togas made just for him, highly functional pockets included, inadvertently sparking a trend amongst the fashion forwards.  He could have sworn he felt something vibrate, which was completely daft, as everyone knows that togas don’t vibrate (well, most don’t), and he’d left Martha’s phone in the TARDIS.  He pulled out his physic paper.  There was a new message!

 _“MAKE HASTE.  GAIUS GERMANICUS GROWS WEAK AS THE FURIES GROW IMPATIENT.”_

Oh well, that was just peachy.  That was just fab.  The Doctor turned behind him to see the Master engaged in animated conversation with the Silanus man that Galaesus had pointed out earlier.  He didn’t look like he’d just used an incredible amount of physic energy to send the Doctor a message so cryptic as to be taken from the Times crossword.  Git.  Stupid, duplicitous, highly confusing git.  The Doctor couldn’t leave this riddle alone, and he had a feeling that this was how someone (The Master? The Gods?) wanted it to play out.  He was a prisoner of fate, entangled in the coiling folds of destiny, and there was no chance of escape any time soon.  _I’m coming, Gaius Germanicus_ , he thought to himself.  _I’m on a very windy and sticky path, littered with distractions, but I’ll reach the end and emerge victorious_.  Even his internal narrator sounded sarcastic.  The Doctor slumped in mental defeat, and gently sipped his wine.  This stuff wasn’t so bad, once you got used to it.

*  
The Doctor spent most of 38CE’s nights roaming the Imperial Palace.  He didn’t need much sleep, and so played Wee Willie Winkie, wandering around his lodgings in the dead of night with his shoes off, so not to wake anyone.  He’d smuggled a supply of tea in from the TARDIS’s well-stocked reserve (this was why he needed pockets), and, steaming mug in hand, made use of the extensive imperial libraries.  They were great, although predictably lowbrow (‘The Secret Passions of a Vestal Virgin’, anyone?), and suffered greatly from a lack of paperback novels.  It was bloody hard to read a scroll and drink a nice cup of tea simultaneously.  The Doctor found this out the hard way.  Ouch.

His fingers twitched every time he passed the imperial bedroom – which he did, fairly regularly.  It was so strange, how his wanderings always seemed to lead him there!  He’d not had a chance to inspect the Master since his arrival, as the Emperor had taken to insisting that he was so offensively healthy as to actively repel all forms of medicine.  And indeed, he was up and about every day, bright-eyed and bushy tailed.  He wasn’t nice, exactly – well no, actually, compared to anyone else he was a bastard of epic proportions, but he hadn’t gone and attempted genocide yet.  This was a pleasant change.  Still, the uncertainty was driving the Doctor bonkers.  He had no idea what was going on, why the Master was there, anything.  It was so incredibly tempting to go in there, press his fingers to that cool forehead, and slip into that strange land of dreams.  It would seem, though, that doing so would always lead to an incredibly awkward situation.  The Doctor, as he accidentally found out, wasn’t the only one out and about in the nighttime.

One night, not long after New Year’s, the Doctor was standing outside the Imperial bedroom, debating on whether or not tonight would in fact be the night, when he noticed that the door was opening slowly, as if with some difficulty.  The Doctor made himself one with the shadows on the wall, listening and hoping not to be seen.

“No!  No!  You’d know I’d love to stay, but really, Gaius, I must go now.”  Drusilla was trying to get through the door, with the Master attached to her, limpet-like.

“Drusilla,” the Master whined into her hair.  “Drusilly-silly.  The night is still young, and we will never be younger.  Why this haste to leave?  I took all the effort to send your husband to Africa, and this is how you repay me?”

“I’m grateful, you know I am – but nevertheless, I am a married woman, and I should be seen to rise from my own bed, come morning.”

“But who would see you, Drusilla?  Your servants?  An illiterate girl-child from Thebes?  Is she more important to you than your own brother, the ruler of the civilised world?”  The Master crossed his arms petulantly.

Drusila sighed.  “Fine,” she said.  “I’ll leave at the approaching of the sun.”  The Master closed the door behind them, his smiling face the last thing the Doctor saw before the gap of light disappeared.

The next night, the Doctor observed Helicon limping away from that same room.  The following night, it was Caesonia who departed.  It was a topsy-turvy world they were living in, the Doctor reflected, where the Emperor’s wife should be the most surprising visitor to the Imperial bedchamber.

*

There were some terrible nights in 38CE, nights that the Doctor would have much rather spent being an accidental witness to warped familial relations.

The Doctor had been standing outside the imperial bedroom for what felt like hours, drilling holes into it with his eyes and waiting for something to happen.  It had gotten rather embarrassing, actually, how this had become the focus of his nocturnal expeditions.  He hadn’t intended to devote himself to anything so base, but he’d sit down in the library, with his lovely cup of tea, and his lovely trashy scroll, and his mind would just wander.  It was all _Oh, this looks like a laugh,_ then a minute later _but I wonder whose turn it is tonight?  Not that I   care or anything, but for statistical purposes, you know, it’s nice to be accurate.  Not that I care._ Then _I wonder if they’ll put up a fight?_   And then before you know it, he’d read the same sentence twenty-eight times, and his tea had gone cold, and he was up from his chair, and his feet were leading him, leading him away to that opulent hallway, and that infernal door, and whatever lay beyond it.

It had gotten bad, actually, the Doctor thought.  Really bad, how often he found himself growing discontent with being one amongst the shadows on the walls.  Quite often, as someone was trying to make their escape and the Master was trying to pull them back, the Doctor felt himself half-hoping that he would sneeze, or cough, or burst into a Tourettes fit of spontaneous profanity.  Something purely accidental, something that couldn’t be blamed on him, but something that the Master would have to notice.  And have to deal with, the Doctor supposed, his throat drying in purely academic anticipation.

But on this particular night, the blasted door was staying firmly shut.  The Doctor didn’t think he had ever hated anything as much as he now hated this infernal door.  It seemed to symbolise all the frustrations that he was experiencing in this stupid, stupid year.  On rash and foolish impulse, he kicked out at it, figuring that there was no one in there to hear him, so why not, right?  The dull pain in his foot bought him back to his senses.  Ouch.

The Doctor sighed and slumped back against the wall, running his fingers through his hair.  This was stupid and childish, he knew.  Being an emperor was a full-time job, and the Master was probably taking a night off from the sleeping-with-everyone-in-the-empire part.  Or he was trying somewhere else.  It wasn’t any of his business, the Doctor told himself.  He’d go back to the library, that’s what he’d do.  He’d go back and read, continuing to look up instances of the Furies in the bountiful classical literature he had available.  There didn’t seem to be much, and the Doctor was running out of bookshelves to pursue, though god knows he’d been slacking a bit on that front lately.

He turned and walked to his favourite library, keeping his mind purposefully blank, careful to ignore the rather potent sense of rage and frustration he felt bubbling up from his stomach.  Think of kittens, he thought to himself.  The kind that aren’t anthropomorphised.  Think of your friends, think of silver ball-bearings.  He was so busy focusing on his favourite things that he barely noticed the sound of voices that came from a large dining hall to his left.

“I don’t like how he looks at me,” a voice was saying.  The Master.  A-ha!

A second voice replied, “And how does he look at you?” Helicon.  Ah, well that made sense.  It was surprising, really, that the Master hadn’t gotten bored of the bedroom earlier.

“Like he knows my soul.  It’s like my innards are as obvious as my flesh, and the features of my face.  I feel I cannot think a single thought in his presence without it immediately echoing in his mind.” Funny, this didn’t really sound like the dialogue of seduction.  The Doctor felt a bit worried, actually, his stomachache of rage giving way to one of anxiety.  They couldn’t be talking about him could they?  No, surely the Doctor was just being paranoid.  They were probably talking about the imperial pet bunny rabbit or something.

“Has it always been this way,” Helicon asked.

“No, just since… Well, Capreae, really,” the Master murmured.

A pause, then, “So what do you propose we do?”

“Kill him, of course.  He cannot go on living whilst he looks at me like that.  And his grandson, too, just for good measure.”  The Doctor felt momentarily elated that he didn’t have a grandson, and so was safe, before he realised that this meant that some other poor sod was marked for execution.

He felt sickened as, in the dining room, the Master and Helicon made arrangements as to who should rouse who from their beds, where they should be deposited, what the official lines should be.  This was so much more like it, a gruesome homecoming of the first order. He moved off to his bedchamber, where he waited, eyes open, staring at the ceiling, until the saffron-coloured dawn bathed the walls of his room with light, and an agonised cry broke out from the gardens below.

The Doctor made his way downstairs, along with most of the palace.  Over the heads of the small crowd that had gathered, he could see the Master, Helicon, and a trembling elderly woman standing over two bloodied bodies.

“So sad, so very sad,” the Master was saying, barely bothering to keep the sardonic edge out of his voice.  “Silanus and Gemellus were family.  I cannot think what tragedy would drive them to suicide.”

“They wouldn’t… They’d never…” the woman sobbed.

“Ah, but you see,” Helicon said, bending down, “how the swords are clasped in their hands?  There is really only one conclusion that can be drawn, I’m afraid.”  The woman shook her head violently.  “What was that, madam?  You disagree?  I know this must come as a shock, but it really is the only thing that could have happened.  Anything otherwise would imply foul play, which I’m sure you’re not doing, are you?”  Helicon loomed over the old soul, his tall and bulky form casting a shadow over her.  The woman cowed and shook her head.

The Doctor turned away, sickened.  This was how it was going to be for the rest of 38CE, and the next few years to follow.  An empire ruled by a homicidal madman, judged by history as a lunatic, and not without reason.  The terrified face of the old woman flashed through his mind, and the Doctor knew he couldn’t leave the innocent people of Rome to fend for themselves.  The Doctor grimaced, adjusting his toga as he inwardly accepted his destiny.


	6. Nil Admirari

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Doctor is in Rome, the emperor has a familiar face, and something is very, very wrong. In this episode! The Doctor saves a life, and earns the Emperor's favour.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is my attempt to re-interpret Virgil's Aeneid, which is fanfiction itself. Also, fellow Caligula geeks will note that my dates are a bit wobbly here, and for that I apologise.

38CE? With the Doctor still in it? With his reputation? What could he be thinking? Good points, all of them, the Doctor mused as he mopped Drusilla’s feverish forehead. The princess was dying, or so it seemed, of something that Galaesus described as “a feminine malady”, but that the Doctor recognised as a fairly advanced case of malaria. She had just got back from a brief trip to Africa to visit her estranged husband, which was probably where she’d picked it up . No matter, he had the cure right in the pocket of his toga. A syringe full of lovely, lovely chemicals (probably not the best thing to keep in your pocket, actually) that he’d picked up from his TARDIS first aid kit yesterday. He’d always known that it was going to come in useful, and hey, he was right.

“I’m going to do something that may seem a little odd, Emperor,” he said, before ripping, with his teeth, a rag from an old tunic. “But it has a one hundred percent success rate in Britain, I swear. I only ask,” he continued, tying the rag tightly around Drusilla’s slender arm, “that you keep what goes on this room secret, or else the Royal house of Londinium will be after both our heads.” Plus, you know, syringes were probably best kept out of the hands of Dark Age peasants.

“Do what you must, Doctor,” the Master muttered. He looked nearly as bad as his sister, standing beside the bed, and gripping her hand in a gesture that went beyond comforting. “Know that if this makes her worse, I’ll have you as target practice for the archers.”

The Doctor nodded tersely. “Understood,” he said, positioning the needle at Drusilla’s forearm. “This might hurt a bit,” he said to her, “but it’s for the best, I promise.” Drusilla didn’t respond, too deep in her fever to recognise the events unfolding around her. The Doctor bit his lip, pushing the needle in gently. The Master gasped as the syringe filled with blood.

“What madness is this,” he asked, moving as if to knock the syringe out of the Doctor’s hands. “Look how pale she is! She needs every drop of blood that she can get!”

“Uh-uh!” The Doctor did his best to bat him off. “Kill me after she fails to recover, okay?” He moved the syringe from her, stopping the small trickle of blood with his pinkie finger. Oh, what he wouldn’t give for a band-aid. “Now, that’ll take a few days to take effect, but she should be fine. On the upside,” he said, giving the Master a wan smile, “she’ll probably never die of sickle-cell anaemia.”

“Don’t make jokes around me, Doctor,” the Master said in a low voice. “Especially stupid British ones that I don’t understand.” He closed his eyes wearily. The Doctor knew that he hadn’t slept in days.

“Why don’t you get some rest,” he suggested. “We’ll keep constant watch over her – we won’t even blink.”

The Master gave a grim smile and shook his head. “I couldn’t leave her,” he said. “What if she wakes up and doesn’t see me? I’d never forgive myself.” He flopped down onto a chair next to the bed. “So, a few days, you say, Doctor?”

“It certainly won’t be more than a week,” the Doctor nodded, wishing that he’d read the packet properly.

“Okay,” the Master said. “I want you here with me the whole time, understood? This is your miracle cure, and you can fix it if it all goes wrong.”

“Right,” the Doctor agreed. “Looks like I’m your man, then.”

“Not by choice, Doctor, not by choice,” the Master shook his head. “I don’t like having a foreigner attend to my sister, but it seems that there are no good doctors left in Rome,” he shot a dark look at Galaesus, who had stood lingering at the doorway throughout the whole ordeal. “Yes, you. Standing there wringing your hands whilst my sister wastes away. Go on, you useless sod, get the doctor” - he put cruel emphasis on the word – “a chair of his own, and some of those scrolls he’s always reading – have you finished ‘Dido and Aeneas: The Missing Scenes’ yet?”

The Doctor blinked. “Err… not quite. How did you know I was reading -?”

The Master raised an eyebrow. “I know everything, Doctor. Plus you’ve been de-alphabetising my shelves for months. Now, I’m going to get changed. Don’t go anywhere. I mean it,” he said, fixing the Doctor with a steady look, leaving the room with the Doctor blushing furiously behind him.

*

The first day was rather awkward. The Doctor hadn’t had a chance to spend much time alone with the Master, and found himself bursting with questions, his bitten lip the only dam on the river of “Why? How? Where? What?” that threatened to escape him. He kept his scroll up to his eyebrows for practically the whole day, lest this conflict play across his face. This didn’t seem to bother the Master, who was content to keep his eyes trained firmly on Drusilla. She slept fitfully for much of the day, her breathing still erratic, but, as the Master cheerfully noted, colour was slowly returning to her cheeks.

The second day was less awkward. The Master, pleased by Drusilla’s decreasing fragility, told the Doctor that he wasn’t going to kill him after all.

“And I was going to, you know,” he said, speaking in a conversational tone through a mouthful of apple cake. “We were going to set you up as a foreign spy type thing. Helicon was against it, mind. He rather likes you.”

“That’s… good to know,” the Doctor said nervously.

“Hmm. Don’t let me regret it, Doctor. This is assuming that she lives, of course,” the Master said, taking another bite off his cake. “Unfortunately dry on its own, this. But I don’t want to get drunk on wine and pass out over Drusilla.” He frowned. “What to do?”

And so, on that second, slightly less awkward day, the Doctor made the Master a cup of tea.

“So your people drink this all the time,” the Master asked, sipping tentatively. “Why? I mean, it’s fine, it’s a bit… different, but have they not discovered wine or something?”

“We just like it better,” the Doctor shrugged.

“I see,” the Master said. “So, if we invaded Britannia, would we have access to this … tea… stuff?”

“No, not at the moment.” The Master looked disbelieving, so the Doctor elaborated. “There was a terrible tragedy, and a sequence of unusually confusing events meant that we had to send all our tea to India.”

“You say the strangest things. I can’t believe they let you train to be a doctor.”

“You’re the one using my services,” the Doctor pointed out.

“Only because I have no choice,” the Master said mildly. “So do they take in anyone that comes off the streets, then?”

“No,” said the Doctor, bristling. “I trained at an academy.” Ooh, this was a good chance to try out some more trigger words. “It’s called the Prydonian academy, it's in a citadel, you have to be able to keep track of time there, because, you know, time and being a lord of time, or Time Lord, as some like to call it, is very important.”

“That’s nice,” the Master said. The Doctor just about had an aneurysm. “So, do you have a wife, children, goat, back in Britannia?”

“No, I’m all on my own. A lonely god, some would call me.” The Doctor wasn’t giving up this easy.

“Some people talk like ponces, obviously. So I suppose you exist on a higher plane to us creatures of the flesh?”

The Doctor flushed. “I, uh, well…” his fumble for words was cut short by a small voice from the bed.

“Water… please,” it murmured. Drusilla had woken up. She was still pale, and looked like she’d come back from the dead, but she was definitely conscious. The Master leapt to her side, covering her moist forehead with kisses. The Doctor breathed a great sigh of relief, knowing that Drusilla wasn’t the only one wrestled from the clammy hands of death today.

*

The Doctor emerged from her bedchamber half an hour later to find the Master there waiting for them, nails bitten almost to the quick. He’d been exiled from the check-up, because he wouldn’t stop snogging her. “How is she?” he whispered urgently.

“Well, that’s um, an interesting question, actually, Gaius,” the Doctor said, running his hand through his hair. At the Master’s worried expression, he hastened to explain. “She’s fine, as such – she’s going to live. She’ll be back on her feet by the end of the week, I’m sure of it.”

“But? There’s a but, isn’t there, Doctor?”

“Well, it’s just…” The Doctor grimaced. This was rather awkward. Oh yes. Any awkwardness lost in the sharing of tea had been restored in spades, if not lorry loads.

“Out, out with it, man,” the Master cried, grabbing the Doctor by his shoulders and shaking him hard.

“Keep your voice down,” the Doctor whispered. “She’s sleeping in there”.

Fascinating. The Doctor had never actually seen someone turn purple before. The Master was like a mood ring. “If you don’t tell me what’s going on right this minute -”

“It’s just… And I don’t know how this could have happened, with her husband being in Africa and all, but she’s three months pregnant, Gaius.”

“Oh.” The Master’s grip on him slackened. “She’s going to have a child. Is that all?”

“Well, yes, but her husband in Africa… and she… It’s a bit odd, don’t you think?” The Doctor was overwhelmed by an uneasy sense of squickiness.

The Master just smiled, still gripping the Doctor. “Stranger things have happened, I’m sure. Oh, Doctor! I thought you were going to say that you were going to have to amputate her legs or something.”

“I said she’d be on her feet, didn’t I? Anyway -” The Doctor was cut off by the Master’s arms, their grip regained, pulling the two men together in a crushing embrace. “Hmmph,” the Doctor said, muffled against the Master’s mouth. He seemed to be saying that a lot these days.

“You,” the Master said, drawing back, “are fantastic! I’m going to erect statues to you throughout the Empire. Your name will stretch across centuries, Doctor – err, what was it again?”

“It doesn’t matter,” the Doctor said firmly. “I don’t matter. I just did my job. Now go on,” he urged the Master towards Drusilla’s door. “Look after her. It’s the best thing you can do.”

The Master grinned broadly, leaned forwards to peck the Doctor again, and then was gone. The Doctor leaned back against the wall, exhaling heavily through his nose. He wiped the back of his mouth with his hand absentmindedly, feeling his hearts quicken with an excitement that he would not allow himself to feel. You just informed your reputed arch-enemy that he’s probably gotten his sister pregnant. Even Captain Jack would draw the line here. Mills & Boon, Doctor, this is not.

*

An hour or so later, and the Doctor felt almost normal again.

He was back in his TARDIS, running his hands absentmindedly over the coral. He practically felt her purr in response. She’d missed him, he knew.

“I’m sorry,” he murmured to her. “You know how it is. But we’ll be out of here before too long.” If TARDISes could roll eyes, then she just did.

The Doctor grimaced and moved to the console. Fumbling about underneath, he found the first-aid kit. Predictably, it was bigger on the inside, which was helpful, as it’s hard to fit stirrups in a lunchbox. The Doctor noted that he had indeed used up the last of malaria antidote, and that he was also completely out of penicillin. Bugger. He’d have to stock up once he was back in proper civilisation. He had truckloads of cough lollies though - and what was that? 4 packets of aspirin, bundled together with a safety band, a note on top.

To my fellow travellers:  
The Doctor is much too proud to admit he has a headache, so don’t feel bad about giving him one of these when he’s being all cranky. Tell him it’s a new type of lemonade and that it’s what all the bloody humans are drinking. Trust me on this.  
Love and kisses,  
A concerned friend.

The Doctor couldn’t help but laugh at this. The Master must’ve put these in there in the year when he had access to the TARDIS, as a sort of back-up plan. It was almost flattering, really, the heights of creativity that the Master reached in his attempts to make his life difficult. It was this creativity, this all-encompassing desire to see the Doctor in dire straits that meant that the Doctor couldn’t go back to his life of being able to cross the universe and be back by tea time- at least not right now.

“Sorry, old girl,” he said, patting the console. “Hang in there.” He left the control room, and headed towards one of his libraries. He wasn’t far off finishing the trashy scrolls, and he’d need something new to occupy his mind before too long. It should be a tad more highbrow his recent fare (‘Paris & Helen’s Wedding Night’ was exactly what it said on the tin) and preferably paperback. Aha!

The Brief & Glorious History of the Third Dardan Empire. Well, it was appropriate, the Doctor thought, glancing at the heavy paperback (was brief really the right word?), its cover adorned with a picture of the Colosseum floating in midair. The Doctor turned it over to read the back.

The Dardan Empire (or Dardanus, as it was colloquially known), had ambitious aims – that of re-creating the Roman Empire on a gaseous planet. The noble men & women that undertook this task struggled valiantly against the odds, but eventually lost against the hostile environment and tensions within their party. In this vibrant new translation by W F Jackson Knight XXIV, the diaries of one Numa Fabricus (real name Lou Curtis) bring their plight to life, unveiling what exactly caused the downfall of this young civilisation, plus giving tantalising clues as to where this missing planet may lie today.

Well, it wouldn’t be a laugh, but the Doctor pocketed it anyway, needing something serious after months of nothing but unsatisfied virgins. Farewelling his TARDIS, he stepped out into the familiar marketplace. The weather was beautiful – today was one of the first true days of spring. Rome was bustling, its people haggling, laughing, talking in clumps. The Doctor imagined their conversations to be full of intellectual promise, the bright sparks of idea that would one day lead to humanity stretching its arms across the universe. The Doctor moved closer to a group of women in order to eavesdrop.

“So, I says to Celaeno, I says, this cake here is so dry, I might as well be eating my table!”

“And what did she say?”

“That she’d told me so! Crazy bint…”

Huh. Maybe not. Still, it was such a lovely day that the Doctor thought he’d take the long route home, passing the senate and the sparkling Tiber on his way.

It was nice, Rome. Sure, the sun was clouding his judgement, and he had come at a rather good time, but you know, if he ever stopped moving, this wouldn’t be the most terrible place to settle down, would it? It’s not like he had to run from the Timelords anymore, was it? What with him being the last one, and all – save for the obvious one, currently off having an identity crisis. Maybe I could even make this work in the long term – a thought so fleeting that he couldn’t stop it. The Doctor told himself to stop being silly. But he’s here, and you’re here, and he needs you. That’s why he’s always running after you. He’d never try anything if you weren’t looking. That’s true – the Master did at times seem like someone losing at a game of tag, chasing after him like a child. “Doctor! Doctor!” - There, the Doctor could almost hear his voice now, the aural equivalent of someone (possibly naked) jumping about with their hands in the air.

“Doctor! Bloody head case! Over here!” Except that wasn’t his imagination, and that wasn’t the Master. The Doctor turned to see Helicon and the Master, standing at the steps of the senate. The Master was grinning broadly, shielding his eyes from the sun, as Helicon took the Doctor by the arm and dragged roughly to the Senate’s entrance.

“Doctor,” he cried when close enough. “What a pleasant surprise to see you in this part of town!”

“Oh, I was just passing through, you know,” the Doctor said, settling on a stock response.

“Listen, I didn’t really thank you properly before. It’s very important that I properly express my gratitude,” the Master said, eyes earnest. The Doctor told himself that he hoped that this didn’t mean more snogging.

“No, really, it’s fine. Just makes sure she enjoys her return to health, okay?” the Doctor said, wincing as he realised how this could be interpreted.

“Oh, I will,” the Master smiled. Helicon sniggered. “Still, I feel a fitting tribute is in order, and seeing as we’re here – Doctor, how would you like to be a senator?”

“Oh no, I couldn’t really -” the Doctor spluttered. He was cut off by Helicon, his normally cheerful and handsome face rearranged into a mask of ugly bad humour.

“He can’t, Emperor,” he said sulkily. “He’s British, a foreigner. He’s not eligible.”

“Oh, of course,” the Master nodded, looking slightly crestfallen. “Still, we have a vacancy, since we had Silanus - ” Helicon coughed, and the Master looked rather guilty. “We have a spot free,” the Master finished.

There was an awkward silence for a few moments, as Helicon stared at the ground with seemingly murderous intent, and the Master surveyed the scene around them as if hoping that someone would jump out, shouting “Me! Pick me!”

“I know,” the Master said at length, a manic smile brightening his face. “Helicon, fetch me my horse, will you?”

Helicon brought over a fine white stallion. “Going home already,” he asked, not bothering to keep the hope out of his voice as he helped the Master to mount.

“Nonsense, Helicon,” the Master said. “We’ve barely just got here!”

Helicon frowned. “Then what…?’

The Master smiled, and gently stroked his horse. “I’ve found my new senator!”

“Incitatus?” said Helicon, eyebrows raised to the heavens. “He’s a horse!”

“He’ll do just a good a job as the rest of them, don’t you think,” the Master asked, giggling. “I’m sorry it couldn’t have been you, Doctor, but he’s the next best thing.” With that, the Master rode into the senate, laughing all the way.

The Doctor and Helicon stood in silence for a few moments, taking in what had just happened.

“He’s mad,” the Doctor said, of course. “I’ve always known it, but it all makes sense now. He’s mad, because he’s him, and he’s mad, so of course Caligula’s mad. Ha ha! Oh, all that analysis – the power, the glory, the possibility of syphilis – none of it's true! He’s just mad, that’s all there is to it!”

“He was going to kill you, you know,” Helicon said abruptly. “There’s no guarantee that he won’t.” He still looked murderously grumpy.

“Oh, I know,” the Doctor said, voice cheerful. “I’ve rather come to expect it”.

“And you don’t mind,” Helicon asked. “Life in Britannia must be interesting.”

“Oh, yes, but this is much, much more so!” The Doctor beamed.

“He wanted you to be a senator,” Helicon muttered. “He must like you now, I guess.”

“Only because I saved his sister’s life,” the Doctor shrugged. “He’d probably have my head on a platter otherwise.”

“He’s never asked me to be a senator,” Helicon said, not really listening. “I’ve been advising him for bloody years, and you turn up five fucking minutes ago, and you’re his best friend now.”

“But didn’t you say you were Greek?” The Doctor frowned. “You’re not eligible either.”

Helicon scowled. “It’s the thought that counts, innit?”

“Well, no, not really -” but Helicon had already turned away.

“Just go home, Doctor. I’ll give Gaius your kindest regards.” He practically spat out the sentence, and the Doctor got the message sure enough. He moved away from the senate, where the senators would be getting formally introduced to their new peer. He shot a look back at Helicon, who apparently had been shooting eye-borne poison daggers into his back. He shivered, and began the long walk home in earnest. Roman life was certainly getting interesting.  



	7. Bibamus, Moriendum Est

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Doctor is in Rome, the emperor has a familiar face, and something is very, very wrong. In this episode! The Doctor grows closer to his patient, but faces unpleasantness over an untimely death.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My thanks to  [](http://tempusdominus10.livejournal.com/profile)[**tempusdominus10**](http://tempusdominus10.livejournal.com/)  for alerting me to this title.

As 38CE went on, the Master’s madness found many innovative ways to manifest itself.  This, the Doctor thought, shielding his eyes against the glaring sunlight, was a particularly good example.  He watched as the Master thundered towards him on horseback, all thundering hooves and boyish enthusiasm.

“Ho,” he shouted as he drew near.  “Isn’t this a laugh?”  Judging by the awkward silence that greeted him, it wasn’t.  The Master frowned.  “Well, go on then! Fucking laugh!”  The group that stood watching him – members of the senate and imperial household, mostly – forced a mirthless chuckle from their collective bowels.  The Master beamed at them in response.

“So, what have we learned today,” he asked, steering Incitatus to walk amongst the Romans. “I didn’t bring you up to Naples for a holiday, did I?  What lesson will you take away from this generous excursion?”

More silence.  Seemingly the ground had never been so interesting.  The Master tutted.

“I’m displeased, but far from surprised.”  He gave a great mock sigh, and mimed falling off his horse in despair.  “Any one?  Go on!  Those two brain cells that you lot share amongst yourselves – rub them together.  Something might just spark.  Hmm… Helicon?  What do you think?”

Helicon kicked the dirt.  “Umm… It’s important… to test naval capability?”

The Master shook his head, disappointed.  “Not up to your usual standard, Helicon, but as it’s you, I’ll forgive.  Anyone?  No?  Doctor?  Does the foreign perspective have anything to offer?”

The Doctor ignored the voices in his head that told him not to be a smarmy git – voices that sounded quite a bit like Jack & Martha, actually.  “You want to show us that nature bends to your will.  No ordinary man could ride across the Bay of Naples on horseback, but you willed it, and so it came to be.”  Eugh, just saying that made him insides feel all wriggly with wrong-ness. The voices in his head were sighing with defeated resignation.  Well, who were they to judge?  The Doctor would like to see how those voices would behave if given corporeal form and placed in his shoes – err, sandals.

The Master raised his eyebrows.  “Well, no actually, but that’s really rather good.  I like him! I really do!  Take notes from the foreigner, oh loyal Romans.  But – good as that was – I brought you up here to show you how hard a _real_ senator works.  Incitatus has done more work in the past hour than you lot have in the past month!  Do you understand?”

The group nodded, shamefaced.  They were cranky, and probably getting rather sun burnt.  Behind them, some distance back, the Doctor could see a crowd of locals, their necks strained to see their Emperor.  To them, he was a figure usually as distant and mythical as the gods on Mount Olympus.  One could only imagine what they were making of this.

“And, you know,” the Master continued, “it is fun.  I think I’d quite like to take someone for a ride with me, so they can experience the thrill of a good work ethic first hand.  Drusilla, are you feeling up to it?”

Drusilla shook her head weakly.  She was shaded by a large parasol, and fanned by several attendants.  Even out of the sun, she still looked a rather unsettling shade of green – the mood ring tendency must run in the family.  The princess did not take very well to pregnancy, less Eilethyiae resplendent than a snake, bulging from having swallowed an egg whole.

“Ah, that’s a shame – probably not the best idea anyway, in your condition.  Hmm?  Who else?”  He surveyed the crowd, eyes landing on the obvious target.  “Well, Doctor, how about you?  You did answer so very well.”

“Ah, I couldn’t,” the Doctor said.  “Surely that’s an honor that should go to a Roman?”  He could practically hear Helicon scowling at him (people in Carthage probably could), not to mention the unpleasant sensation the gazes of 100 resentful Romans hot on his back brought.

The Master surveyed the group, shaking his head.  “In theory, yes, but I’ve never seen a more pitiful group.  No, Doctor, it’s you I want, and you I shall have.”  He held a hand down to the Doctor, helping him up.

“I’m fine, I’m fine, you don’t need – watch those hands!” the Doctor yelped as the Master helped him get into position.  Golly, these Romans were unsubtle.

“You could fall off, and then who would fix you, hmm?  Who doctors the Doctor?”  The Master murmured, taking rather too much interest in the placement of the Doctor’s limbs.  “You’re so lanky,” he said distractedly.

“It won’t interfere with the aerodynamics, I promise,” the Doctor said, pushing his hands away firmly.  He needed to calm down; they both did, if they were ever actually going to leave the shore.

The Master gave him an unreadable look, and turned around to grab Incitatus’s reigns.  “Ready?” he asked, taking off at the same moment.  The sudden motion was a shock to the Doctor, and it was all he could do to cling on to the Master for dear life.  He could feel, if not hear, the laughter rocking his small frame.

Incitatus, though remarkable (at least in title), was not some kind of Jesus horse, and could not run on water.  No, this feat had been made possible by tying hundreds of boats – the bulk of the navy- together to stretch across the Bay of Naples.  It was over this glittering expanse of water that they sped, Incitatus’s hooves rocking the boats as they crossed them.  It was terrifying, it was dangerous, it was an incredible waste of money – but the Master was right, it was really very fun.  The Doctor, rather in spite of himself, let out a whoop of pure joy.  The air – cool, and made fresh by the scent of salt – rushed through his hair, stung his eyes, and filled his lungs to bursting.  He felt so very alive, as if the cosmic dust was being forcibly shaken out of him.

“What do you think, Doctor?” he heard the Master yell.  “Anything like this in Britannia?”

“Only in the modern art museums!”  The Doctor laughed, but his answer was lost in the rushing winds.  He contented himself just to cling to the Master, feeling the warmth of him through his tunic, taking in his scent – the perfumed oils of the baths, sweat, and something else, something deeper and more intrinsically him, something that the Doctor could probably analyse the chemical structure of, but had no inclination to.

The voices in his head were screaming out that this was wrong, that this was the man that had caused the end of the world, that had murdered millions, and the Doctor, on one level, agreed with them.  But if those voices could feel the wind, and feel him, and see the little smiles that the Master was occasionally throwing over his shoulder, then they might understand.  He felt happy, real, proper _happy_ , as if all his cells had learned to play the violin, and were doing Pachelbel's Canon in D.  He wasn’t selling drugs to small children.  He wasn’t committing genocide.  Indeed, in the grand scheme of morally dubious happinesses, this was fairly minor, he reckoned, as he threw caution to the rushing winds as buried his face in the back of the Master’s neck.

*

The Doctor reclined on his bed, and bit into an apple.  As a time-traveller, he tended to forget about seasons, and the fruit that corresponded with them.  Autumn was nearing its end, and this was probably the last apple that he would eat for awhile.  Juice dribbled down his chin.  Lovely.

He opened the paperback he was holding, it’s bookmark on a shameful page three.  He’d meant to read this, he really did, but what with one thing and another, he kept being pulled away from it.  The summer flu, the sniffles, and the oddly fascinating venereal diseases suffered by members of the imperial household all acted to keep him away from his bedside reading matter.  The Master, in particular, had seemingly gotten over his belief that his immune system was undefeatable.  He’d taken to calling the Doctor to his bedchamber for any number of trivialities, ones that always seemed to necessitate disrobing.

“A sore throat can be treated with your toga, on, you know,” the Doctor recalled saying to him, not a week ago.  The Master had sat facing away from him, quite naked.  The Doctor could see the muscles off his back.  Funny thing, back muscles.  You never really gave them a thought until confronted by them, and then – there they were!  The skin covering them was lightly dusted with freckles, the Doctor half noted with minor academic interest.

The Master had laughed at the Doctor’s reticence.  This made the back muscles move!  Fascinating.  “You’re so old fashioned,” he had said.  “Apparently, the most cutting edge doctors are doing this thing now where all parts of the body are utilised to treat the afflicted part.  Interesting, don’t you think?”

“New age rubbish, if you ask me,” the Doctor had said, firmly.  He moved closer to his patient, wondering what the Hippocratic Oath had to say about situations like this.  He never reached him, however, as the door had burst open at that moment, and a very stressed looking Galaesus rushed in.

If he found the scene in front of him to be unusual, he didn’t say.  Instead, he gasped out something that rather spoiled the mood.  “Emperor, Doctor, it’s Drusilla – the child is coming!"

What had followed was a rather unpleasant two hours.  Galaesus and the Doctor had managed to deliver a baby girl to the princess, a sickly thing that the Master acted surprisingly indifferent towards, probably resenting how it divided his sister’s time.  The princess wasn’t fairing too well, either.  Penicillin probably would’ve helped, but the Doctor had, of course, inconveniently run out. Always prepared – ha!  What a poor Boy Scout the Doctor would make.  Still, Drusilla was up and about, which was always a good thing.  The Doctor had seen her and the Master walking in the gardens earlier, making the most of the good weather before it disappeared completely.

But the Doctor was getting distracted again!  Rome seemed to have that effect on him.  He did his best to focus on the book he held.

 _DIES IOVIS AD III AD DEC_

 _Day 1_

 _Salutations, diary!  
I’m writing this having just left one of those service station planets just outside of Sarpedon. I suppose this’ll be the last glimpse of modern civilisation (if it can be called that) for well, the rest of my life, really. Pah! Good riddance to bad rubbish!  
That said, I will miss sugar – something the Romans didn’t have, and so we won’t either. I’ve had about five Mars bars to say goodbye, and now I’m feeling a bit queasy.  
We got talking to some of the locals while we were there. We told them our plan and reactions were pretty typical – lots of sniggering and coughs that sound suspiciously like “anorak!” Plebeians. They’ll see. Something a bit strange happened, though. One of those wizened old grandmother types (I didn’t know they still made those), upon hearing the coordinates of our planet – our planet! I love saying that – began tearing at her hair and beating her breast, all that. One of her sons translated her native wailings for us. Apparently, our planet (!) is home to “spirits that drive good men to madness and murder”, and future generations of Sarpedian service station workers will weep for us. Huh. The younger Sarpedians were all too keen to point out that, as we’re attempting to rebuild Rome on a gaseous planet, bad-mood causing spirits are the least of our worries. Bunch of plebeians.  
Anyway, not too long now. I can see our planet out the window! Yes, it’s gaseous, but it’s the best we could get, and we’ll make it work. The Third Dardan Empire will be victorious!  
I really shouldn’t have eaten all those Mars bars.  
Numa Fabricus X.  
_  
The Doctor was startled out of his book by a loud cry from the gardens below.  He replaced his bookmark and ran downstairs at double speed.  It sounded like that cry had come from the orchard, and it was there, amongst the sweetly rotting apples and russet coloured leaves of autumn, that Drusilla lay.  Galaesus and the Master were hunched over her figure, their faces contorted into masks of worry.

“I can’t find it, it must be here somewhere,” the Doctor could hear Galaesus say as his wrinkled figures searched Drusilla’s neck.

The Master gave a choked laugh of hysteria.  “It’s a pulse, you fool, it doesn’t just go on walkabout.”  Looking up, he saw the Doctor.  “Quick, get over here!  She collapsed while we were walking, and now, she’s…” he trailed off, gesturing uselessly at his sister’s prone form.

The Doctor took a look at Drusilla, and knew at once from her glassy gaze what had transpired.  “I’m sorry, Gaius,” he said, taking the Master’s shoulders and attempting to draw him back from the body.  “I’m so sorry, but there’s nothing that we can do.  She’s gone.”

“Gone?” the Master croaked.  “How can she be gone?  She was with me, and she was fine, and now -” he broke off, to bury his sobbing head in the Doctor’s shoulder.

“I know, I know,” the Doctor murmured, stroking the length of the Master’s back.

“How could this have happened?” the Master asked, voice muffled against the Doctor’s toga.

“It was a difficult birth, Gaius, and she'd been ill not too long before.  I don’t know if she really ever was the same after that.”

The Master pulled back suddenly, eyes blazing.  “She got better!” He cried.  Within seconds he was up on his feet, taking the Doctor with him.  The Doctor found himself pressed up against a nearby apple tree, the Master’s small hands circling his neck.  “I have all these doctors,” he hissed, “all these bloody physicians, and what good does it do me, if I still lose her?”  His hands tightened momentarily, and the Doctor gasped.

“Tell me, Doctor, do you know what Alexander did when Hephaestion died?”  Without waiting for an answer, he continued.  “He had the doctor killed.  I’ve long admired Alexander, did you know that,” he asked, banging the Doctor’s head against the tree, his grip still a vice around the Doctor’s neck.

“That’s purely conjecture, Gaius,” the Doctor managed to gasp out.  “It’s probably the result of historical prejudice against their relationship.  Arrian, in particular, says several times that he disapproved -”

“Shut up, Doctor, shut up,” the Master cried, banging the Doctor’s head harder.  The Doctor quieted, wincing from the blows.  “You don’t get to call me Gaius! Not anymore!”

“I’m sorry,” the Doctor said quickly.  “I’m so sorry, it won’t happen again”.

“I’m sorry, _Emperor_ ,” the Master shrieked, throwing the Doctor’s head back in a blow that made him feel dizzy.

“I’m sorry, Emperor,” the Doctor whispered, eyes closed and fists clenched.  He wondered what it would be like to die here, killed in this 38CE orchard by a man oblivious to their shared history.  It would be rather like the regeneration process, he supposed, but without the actual regenerating, or the continued life that came after it.

He heard the Master sigh, and opened his eyes to find his features strangely softened.  “What am I doing,” he murmured to himself.  “You cured her, the first time she was sick.  You gave me a few more precious months with her, if anything.  Perhaps if you’d gotten here earlier… Oh, but it’s too late for that now.”  He released the Doctor and moved back.  “I’m sorry, Doctor. The furies, they take me sometimes.”

The Doctor nodded, ignoring the pain it caused him to do so.  “Grief. It happens,” he croaked. He’d think about what the Master had said later.  For now, he was just glad to have his neck to breathe through.

The Master gave him a small smile, and turned away, striding towards Galaesus, who was sitting, dumbfounded, next to Drusilla’s body.  The Master grabbed him by the arm, hauling him up and dragging him back in the direction of the palace.  “You’re coming with me,” he said through gritted teeth.

“Wait!” the Doctor said, running to catch up.  “Where are you taking him?”

The Master swung around, twisting Galaesus’ arm in the process.  The old man howled.  “Shut up!” the Master barked.  “I can accept, Doctor, that Drusilla’s death wasn’t your fault, but I can’t let her be unmatched.  Galaesus has looked after her health since we were children, and now she is dead.  The solution, don’t you think, is pretty obvious?”

Galaesus started to cry.  The Doctor shook his head.  “This is madness.  Killing Galaesus won’t bring Drusilla back to life.”

The Master gave a cruel smile.  “Maybe not, but it’ll make me feel better.  Hush now, Doctor, unless you are so noble as to offer yourself in the place of Galaesus?”  He snickered at the Doctor’s answering silence.  “I thought not.  Stay here with Drusilla.  Keep her company while I take care of business.  Helicon is going to be so very happy about this.”  With that, he turned and hastily returned to the palace, dragging a sobbing Galaesus behind him.  The Doctor was left alone in the orchard, watching the leaves fall on Drusilla’s lifeless form, an uneasy feeling of familiarity creeping through his aching bones and neck.


	8. Primus Inter Pares

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is a historical AU, in which the Doctor visits ancient Rome to find the emperor Caligula wearing a familiar face. In this episode! Caligula works an assassination attempt to his advantage.

  
  
Senators, the Doctor mused, looked a bit like doves.  They had descended upon the Imperial Palace in droves, their newly cleaned togas shiny and white.  The Doctor, stiff and oddly formal and itchy in his, didn’t stand out from their number at all.  He felt like a bleached pigeon.  The Doctor knew how they’d gotten those togas so clean, and thought it a shame that urine and dead hedgehogs couldn’t be used on a person’s conscience or memory.

The senators milled about in groups – flocks, the Doctor supposed.  This whole affair was awkward and gruesome, and – even by Roman standards – really rather sordid.  The best way to survive these things was to get very, very drunk, and everyone had climbed aboard this lifeboat enthusiastically.  Heck, even the Doctor was veering towards the sloshed end of the tipsy spectrum, but his indulgence was minor compared to that of his contemporaries.  He’d seen Helicon throw up into a pot plant not five minutes ago.  Poor Helicon.  Poor pot plant.

There was one person not drinking.  The Master sat in an opulent throne, his gaze boring holes into the wall opposite and anyone unfortunate enough to cross in front of it.  He’d not said a word since they’d returned from Drusilla’s funeral an hour ago, merely shot death glares at anyone foolish enough to give him their condolences.

The funeral was just a formality, really, a morbid glacé cherry sitting on a knickerbocker sundae of grief.  The Master had declared mourning throughout the empire, in the style of bygone Eastern monarchs and his precious Alexander.  A black cloud had settled over Rome and her provinces, smothering them in sorrow.  The streets were deserted, markets were shut, and the Tiber was the only one making any noise.  People sat huddled in their houses, ordered to mourn for a woman that they’d only become aware of posthumously.  The only ones allowed to do anything were the sculptors commissioned to replicate Drusilla’s flesh in marble, and the coin-makers, minting Drusilla’s likeness into memory.

The Senators milled about aimlessly, checking the progress of the setting sun in the sky and wondering when they would be able to go home.  The Doctor was mostly left alone, save for the odd furtive glances in his direction.  He was one of the first at the scene, and he supposed that the stench of death was clinging to him.  Lovely.  Besides, his novelty as a mad foreigner had long since worn off, replaced by good old-fashioned xenophobia and suspicion – although they still talked about his old clothes.  The Doctor had twice found groups of young Roman nobles in his sleeping quarters, gazing in awe at his open closet.  The Doctor couldn’t blame them.  His heart ached for pinstripes.

Galaesus didn’t get empire-wide mourning – he didn’t get so much as a shitty little fishing village in Sicily.  He didn’t get a funeral, either.  The Doctor had no idea what had had happened to the body, but at this point, that was no great loss.  He wondered if there was anyone mourning him at all.  He didn’t know if Galaesus had had a family, friends, hobbies, any life at all outside of his job as Helicon’s punching bag.  He’d never asked.  Ah, that was bad.  He was supposed to be the one who did that, or made others feel guilty for not doing it.  Oh dear.  He glanced over at the Master – still resplendent in his throne of grumpiness – and imagined he could hear his voice in his head.  It was the real Master, the proper one, the one that recognised him, the one that hadn’t been tricked into thinking that tissue compression eliminator was the national dish of Britannia.  _Oh, Doctor,_ it said, _the moral high ground has been ripped from under your feet, and now you’re down here with the rest of us.  You’re pond-life, Doctor.  You’re in the ethical Antipodes.  You’re in Hades with all the others suffering from an excess of passionate intensity.  But where’s your conviction, Doctor?  You’re the worst, and you’re keeping good company, and you wouldn’t change it for the world._

The Doctor shook his head.  Rome was getting to him, and his fantasies were speaking to him in poetry, and he should really have a lie down.  Yes, he should, there were a lot of things he should do, but there was an adolescent boy refilling his goblet with wine, and he was drinking it, and well, social niceties necessitated that he stay for a just a bit longer.

The stilted murmurs masquerading as conversation subsided, and the Doctor, previously engrossed in a game of Let’s-Keep-The-Bottom-Of-The-Cup-Invisible-For-As-Long-As-Possible, looked up.  The Master had stood, and was surveying the room. He lifted his goblet – untouched- and cleared his throat. “A toast,” he said, voice hoarse but completely sober. “To my sister.”

“To Drusilla,” rang out around the room, the Senators wobbling as they held their drinks aloft.

The Master nodded, waiting a minute before continuing.  “As I’m sure you all know,” he said, “Drusilla was a remarkable woman.”  Well, they didn’t, but a wave of nodding and mumbled agreements swept across the room anyway.  “Her achievements and beauty do not need reiterating, but I worry that future generations will live without knowledge of her charms.  That, my friends, would be a stunted life, don’t you think?”

More nodding.  One senator – Caligula’s uncle, the one with the gimpy leg – stepped forwards.  “What do you suggest, Emperor?”

The Master smiled.  “I have given the matter considerable thought, Claudius. I can think of only one option that properly befits her – deification.”

The room gave a collective gasp.  Claudius frowned.  “But she’s a woman, Gaius.  It goes against all precedent.”

“She was so much more than a woman,” the Master said, voice low and eyes blazing. “And precedent can go to hell.  Do you think I’m going to let my sister go forgotten?  Become a line in the scrolls that hold Rome’s history?  No!  My grandchildren will worship her as the goddess she is.”

“But she won’t be forgotten, Gaius.  This just isn’t done.  Even Augustus didn’t have Livia deified.”

The Master shrugged.  “Augustus was a fool.  It’s not my problem.”

The Senators were shaking their heads.  This was blasphemy.  Claudius looked desperate.  “Please, Emperor,” he pleaded, “it doesn’t have to be like this.  What about a nice statue?”

The Master gave a great laugh.  “A statue?  Oh dear.  I might just have all the pillars in Rome replaced with whacking great statues of her.  Oh, Claudius, you fool.  As if this was ever really up for discussion.  You can all go now, as I know you are desperate to.  Your eagerness is most disrespectful, and it doesn’t please me in the slightest.  Remember, oh loyal citizens of Rome, I am in charge here.  You’re all subject to _my_ whims, and my whims are most subjective.  Now – out!”

The senators gratefully filed from the room, their haste causing a minor blockage at the door.  The room gradually emptied, leaving only the tipsy Doctor, grumpy Master, and incredibly drunk Helicon.  It was rather awkward.  The Master sighed heavily, cradling his head in his hands.

“Am I wrong,” he asked, speaking mostly to himself.  “No, of course I’m not.  I’m me.  Why is everyone so phenomenally thick and short-sighted?  They speak of Rome, I speak of centuries.  They speak of precedent, I speak of new beginnings.  Why is it that I must bend my will to please these imbeciles?  Because I’m so thoughtful and generous, obviously.  But I’m getting fed up with it.  No more!  You’ll see a new side to Caligula, I can tell you that.”  He looked up.  “Doctor, I daresay that you’ve seen and treated a great deal of men in your time.  Tell me – has any ever matched me in wit or intelligence?”

The Doctor unstuck his tongue from the roof of his mouth.  “Ah, well, I couldn’t make a statistically accurate statement on that, Gaius.”

The Master crooked his head to the side.  “Come here,” he said.  The Doctor approached cautiously.  The Master took the Doctor’s hand in his own, lacing their fingers together and holding them against his right heart.  “You feel this,” he asked.  The Doctor nodded.  “I have a theory.  Two hearts makes twice the man.  Double the brainpower, double the passion, double the vision.  What do you think, Doctor?”

The Doctor was silent for a moment, trying to come up with a semi-decent response.  Helicon cut in, his drunken voice braying across the room.  “Anything else you’ve got two of?”

The Doctor was possessed by a desperate longing to remark that he’d not heard that one – today.  He knew that it would only be met with incomprehension, and god, what he wouldn’t give to tell a Gallifreyan joke and have someone else know the punchline.  He met the Master’s gaze, searching for a glimpse of his old friend in those brown depths.

The Master held his gaze, breaking away suddenly to smirk at the floor.  “Helicon,” he said, “you’ve had far too much to drink.  Go lie down.”

“Right you are!” said Helicon, giving a wobbly salute and crossing to a comfy sofa, which he promptly crashed down upon.  Within seconds, the sound of his great gurgling snores filled the room.

“There’s lovely,” the Doctor said, pulling a face.  “I should probably do the same.  In the privacy of my own room, of course…” he moved back, attempting to pull his fingers free.

The Master held them firm in his grip.  “What are you doing,” he asked, voice soft.

“Um, going to bed and snoring loudly?”

“No, you’re not.  I saw how you looked at me, Doctor.  The snoring I think we can skip, but you’re halfway there.”  The Master was stroking the Doctor’s fingers.  It was quite distracting.

“I… um…”  Bloody hell.  He supposed he should have been expecting this.  This was Rome and this was the Master.  That said, would he ever be properly prepared for him?  Not really.  He could feel the Master’s heart beating under his hand, just as he had on his first night here.  It was speeded up then, just as it was now, but this time it wasn’t the product of feverish delirium.  No, the Master’s hearts were beating faster for him.  Oh god.  The Doctor felt light-headed.  _It’s the drink,_ he told himself.  _Calm down.  You’re behaving like a Catholic schoolgirl on her first trip behind the bike sheds_.  The solution was to think appropriate and prosaic thoughts.  Hmm.  Gaius Germanicus.  Being duty bound and all that.  It was really nice, the way the Master was rubbing his thumb over the Doctor’s knuckles in small circles… Aargh, no.  The Doctor screwed his eyes shut tightly, and exhaled strongly through his nose.  Thinking, thinking… That Sontaran video he found when he was cleaning up after Captain Jack.  Eurgh, concentration restored.

“I can’t, Gaius,” he said, voice coming out embarrassingly strangled.  “Circumstances intervene, and things become impossible, and I’m sorry, but no.”

He opened his eyes to see the Master looking at him with a bewildered expression on his face.  “I don’t think anyone’s ever said no to me before,” he said with a mild tone of surprise.  The corners of his mouth gradually lifted into a smile.  “But if there’s one thing I love, it’s a challenge!”

The Doctor groaned.  “No, no, no,” he said, rubbing his free hand tiredly over his face.  “No challenge, no conquest, no Casanova.  Please.”

“Casanova?”

“Nasty venereal disease.  It’s all over the place in Britannia.”  See, this is why the Doctor couldn’t get involved with the Master in his present state.  He knew nothing.  It would be taking advantage, like some intergalactic pervy uncle.

The Master was nonplussed.  “Well, I don’t have it.”

“Good, good.  Keep it that way!  Find other hobbies to keep your mind off Drusilla.  Take up gardening.  Macramé!  Run an empire, even.”

“Or,” the Master said, still infernally grinning and _rubbing_ , “you could stop changing the subject, and just go to bed with me, like I know you want to.”

“Ah, but I don’t want to.”  The Doctor hoped that he sounded convincing.

“You do,” the Master murmured.  He moved their entwined hands to his mouth, absentmindedly rubbing the Doctor’s knuckles across his lips.

“Look, even if I did, you could have anyone in Rome.  Anyone!  The best looking, the most flexible – me, I’m a mad foreigner.  I’m nothing special.”

“I’ve seen your native dress, Doctor, and you couldn’t possibly be a nation of celibates,” the Master smirked.  “And it’s more than that.  When I speak to you, I feel that you truly understand me.  Any fool can nod and agree with his Emperor, but you, Doctor, you process.  You understand.  I can feel it.  I don’t just want your body.  I want your mind.  Do you know how lonely it is, being a genius like me?  I had Drusilla, but now she’s gone, and you’re right in front of me, and god, I like you.”

“So we’ll talk, Gaius,” the Doctor said.  “We’ll have full and frank intellectual discourse – oh, good lord.”  The Master had sucked the Doctor’s index finger into his mouth, cheeks hollowed obscenely.  The Doctor stood absolutely still for a moment, feeling the gentle warmth of the Master’s mouth and the way it moved around him.  Oh fuck, oh god, oh hell.

He forced his hand free and wiped it furiously on his toga.  His head felt crackly, full of electricity and white noise.  Aargh, not good, not good.  Bad, in fact.  Half of him wanted to run off right now, go back to his TARDIS and fly far away from this highly charged madness.  The other (currently very interested) half wondered why he was putting up a fight in the first place.  He shook his head.  He had work to do.  He had people to save.  Getting entangled in the mess that was the Master didn’t factor into these plans.

“Enough! “ he said hoarsely, stepping back from the Master.  “Look, I’m very flattered and I fully respect you and all that, and I wish you well in your endeavors, but I can’t take part in them.  I’m nothing, okay?  I’m negative space.  I’m a toga floating in mid-air.  Forget about me.  Spend time with your wife, Helicon, anyone.  Come to me when you have a headache, Gaius, but that’s it.”

The Master was silent for a minute, looking at the ground while the Doctor waited with bated breath.  When he finally looked up, he had a smile on his face.  “To a lesser man, you would be an impossible thing.  A paradox.  A man that dresses like a whore but lives like a vestal virgin.  A man with such a busy mind but such a dormant body.  But I see through you, Doctor.  I know your type.  Your spirit will be consumed in a blaze of ethics and rhetoric, till you’re left only with your precious morals and the comfort of your left hand.  A tragedy.  I won’t let it happen to you.”

The Doctor raised an eyebrow.  “That’s not for you to decide.”

“Ah, but that’s what you think.  For tonight, Doctor, I respect your integrity, but believe me, this is far from over.  Go to bed now, why don’t you?  Don’t let your mind wander as you lie there – ponder only intellectual affairs, and see how long you can keep your hands still.  Good night, Doctor, and good luck.”  He blew the Doctor the kiss, winked coquettishly, and with that, swept from the room.  The Doctor was left standing there, Helicon’s rollicking snores the only thing to distract him from the roaring blood in his ears.

  
*

The Doctor spent the last night of 38CE wishing desperately that he was somewhere else.  Anywhere.  Introducing sixteenth century Italians to the wonder of hot chocolate.  Inadvertently starting a vaguely Marxist revolution on a planet of sentient carrot flower beings.  Watching, with an awe-struck companion, as a new sun blinked and fizzed into existence.  He wanted to feel the universe swirling around him.  He wanted to be at the centre of a Magic 8 Ball.  Where will I go?  _Nobody knows_.

As it so happened, his feet were very much planted on the earth’s firm soil.  The Master’s feet, well.  The Doctor gulped, crossed his legs as tightly as he could and gave the Master a thorough glare.  The Master giggled at him.  Bastard.

“Doctor?  You were saying,” he asked, his grin a bewildering mix of Cheshire cat and sex kitten.  “Do tell us more about the agricultural systems of Britannia.  I’m ever so interested.”

“The entirety of the north is devoted to the growth of cabbages,” the Doctor said, voice dull with boredom.  Making up outrageous lies about his adopted homeland had grown tiresome long ago.  “We’ve domesticated cats to prowl the fields and chase off sparrows.”

The ever-grumpy Helicon chimed in.  “I thought you said that sparrows were banned?”

“I did?”  Golly, that was inspired.  “Well, you know, illegal sparrows.  Cheeky things.  They’ll steal anything as soon as set eyes on it?”

“Like what?” Caesonia drawled, playing absentmindedly with the hem of her tasseled serviettes.

“Oh, you know.  Buttons, silver ball-bearings, the odd hamster – oh!”  He broke off in a yelp. The Master’s foot had reached its destination.  The Doctor swatted at it, in as subtle a manner as he could manage, as the Master continued his pedal, under-table exploration.  Bastard.

“Doctor,” he asked, face perfectly innocent.  “Everything all right?”

“Oh, I, uh… lost a grandmother to sparrows.  I don’t like to talk about it,” the Doctor said, still squirming.

“That’s terribly sad,” Caesonia murmured, completely oblivious to the scene playing out underneath her dining table.  “I wonder where the first course is.”

The Doctor had been roped into spending the New Year’s so-called celebrations with the Imperial family.  Joy.  The Master had insisted that he join them on the grounds that he was the “highly esteemed and honoured guest of the Roman Empire.”  As it turned out, “guest of the Roman Empire” meant “person that the Master wants to play footsie with”, but it was all a means to an end, the Doctor supposed.  The Doctor was seated directly across from the Master and his wandering feet, with the eternally bored Caesonia on his left and the sulky Helicon on his right.  Also present were Caligula’s two surviving sisters, Julia and Agrippina, and the late Drusilla’s husband, one Aemilius Lepidus.  He had arrived in Rome on the pretext of picking up Drusilla’s child and taking it back to live with him in Africa.  He seemed to be taking his time, the Doctor thought, watching him exchange a fond glance with Agrippina.  Gosh, these Romans.  The party of seven had very little to say to one another (at least with words), it had been a year barely worth celebrating, and, to top it off, the soup was late.

A whole year!  The Doctor couldn’t believe it.  He didn’t do years.  He was great with minutes, amazing with hours.  He could definitely do days, weeks were worth a go.  He’d dabbled with months.  But years?  They were for other people!  It boggled the Doctor’s mind to think of it.  He’d have to start getting calendars soon.  A year planner diary, why not?  Heck, he could even take out a magazine subscription.  Go mad!  The Doctor shuddered.  The air tasted like permanence.  Yech.  Where was the bloody soup?

A pair of adolescents walked in, carrying trays of steaming bowls.  Finally!  The Doctor watched the Master warily, but his gaze seemed contented.  His moods had been like a swing-set lately.  He’d go from hysterical tears over Drusilla, to threatening to decapitate everyone in the room, to practically humping the Doctor’s leg – all within the space of 15 minutes!  It wouldn’t be unlike him to throw the scalding liquid in his server’s face, but thankfully he left it alone.  The servant girl must’ve known this – poor thing, she was trembling like a leaf.  The Doctor gave her an encouraging smile as she put his bowl down.  She practically squeaked.

The Master laughed as she departed.  “Doctor, what ever have you been doing to scare my servant girls so?  No, wait – it’s probably not for the ears of our womenfolk, am I right?”  He gave the Doctor an exaggerated wink.  The Doctor scowled, his only response to dunk his bread into his soup with just a bit too much force.  Soup splattered on his toga.  He heard Helicon snicker next to him.  Ha bloody ha.

“The Doctor’s got the right idea, everyone – and the enthusiasm, I daresay.  Come, everyone, dig in!  You needn’t wait for my permission.  You three,” he said, addressing his sisters and brother-in-law, “look like stunned rabbits.  Go on!  Eat!”  The trio gave him weak smiles, and began to sip on their soup.  They did look nervous, the Doctor noticed, but who could blame them?  Walking into this domestic set-up would give anyone normal an anxiety disorder.

The Master slurped his soup enthusiastically for about ten seconds, then stopped and sat stone still.  “Oh,” he said, matter-of-factly.  “There’s something in this.”  He blinked a few times, and then fell with a great crash to the ground, twitching and writhing.

There was a great commotion as Helicon and Caesonia rushed to his side to flutter about uselessly.  The visitors stayed at their end of the table, seemingly in shock over the events unfolding.  The Doctor, at least, could be sensible.  He reached across the table and grabbed the Master’s soup, lifting the spoon to his nose and having a good sniff.  He could smell the poison immediately.  Belladonna alkaloid.  A problematic wee poison, certainly, and usually rather fatal to humans.  Luckily (or not, for the assassins), they were not dealing with a human here.

“What the fuck are you doing, Doctor,” Helicon cried.  “Now is not the time for taste-testing! Get your skinny British arse over here before he bloody well kicks it!”  The Master’s gurgles grew momentarily louder.  “Sorry, Caligula,” Helicon said hurriedly.  “You’ll be fine, once wonderboy here gets his act together.”

The Doctor moved to the Master’s side, shooing Helicon and Caesonia out of the way.  Cradling the Master’s head in his lap, he couldn’t help but smile.  “Haven’t I seen you here before,” he said, smoothing the Master’s hair down with his long fingers.  The Master looked up at him, eyes wide with confusion.

“Oh, don’t look so worried,” the Doctor said.  “As if this could kill you, you daft sod.  Now, you can feel the poison in your system, can’t you?  You can feel moving through your bloodstream, seeping through your muscles?”  The Master thought about it for a second, then nodded quickly, looking rather worried.  “Right.  Now focus on that feeling.  Imagine that you’re pulling it all in, drawing it all together, solidifying it in one spot.”

The Master screwed his eyes shut in concentration, only to open them wide a few moments later, surprise written clearly upon his features.  “There, you’ve got it,” the Doctor said.  “Now just sit up… There, that’s it.”  The Master was leaning forwards, instinct telling him to start hiccuping and retching.  The Doctor slapped him on the back a few times, the Master gave a final great cough, and the solidified poison flew out of his mouth.  It skittered across marble floor and landed under the table.

The Master slumped back in his arms, moaning softly.  Little did he know that he’d just performed a very popular Gallifreyan party trick, a favourite with the older and more adventurous students at the Academy.  Students like them.  The Doctor gave him a sad smile, gently stroking the side of his face.

“Feeling better,” he asked.

The Master groaned.  “You saved my life, Doctor,” he murmured.  “You must like me a little bit”.

“Trust you to think of that,” the Doctor chuckled.

A voice came from the table.  “No one should have survived that.”  It was Julia, Caligula’s sister.  She spoke as if forgetting her whereabouts, staring blankly ahead as Agrippina tried to subtly elbow her in the ribs.

“No,” said Caesonia.  “How could any man have survived this?”  She was holding the solid poison.  It glowed bright green in her hands, like some post-nuclear cough lolly.

“Put that down,” the Doctor said firmly.  “You could get sick off it.”  Plus those things stained like nothing else.

“But how, Doctor,” Caesonia asked, putting it down.  “How is he still alive?”

“Well…”  There was no way he could explain and still be regarded as vaguely sane.  “He’s just special, isn’t he?  Any normal man would be dead by now, but Caligula is no ordinary man.”

“Good answer,” the Master said, giving a weak smile.

“Thought you’d like it.”

“But this means that someone tried to kill me,” the Master continued, voice worried.

“Yes,” the Doctor sighed.  “I suppose it does.”

“We’ll find them, Gaius,” Helicon said.  “They won’t live to tell of this day.”  The Doctor knew that this was the truth.  He could see the shadow of the servant girl in the hallway opposite.  He – and probably she, by now – knew that her fate was sealed, a fixed point in time.  Poor thing, she was just a pawn in this imperial game.  The Doctor felt infinitely bad for her, but there was nothing that he could do.

“But even if you do,” the Master said, “there’ll be others, won’t there?”

Helicon nodded.  “We’ll come down harder on them, Caligula.  Harsher punishments, fewer dissidents -”

“It will never be enough,” the Master said softly.  “If there are people who want to see me dead, they’ll forge on till they succeed.”  There was silence in the room as the probable truth of his statement was processed.  “But, if we can’t treat the sickness, we can always have the cure on hand.  Isn’t that right, Doctor?”

“Umm… Yes?” the Doctor said, not really sure what the Master was getting at.  This didn’t seem like the best time to point out that cures for decapitation and drowning were few and far between.

“And what a pleasant cure you are, Doctor,” the Master grinned.  “I want you at my side at all times, understand?  It’s simply unsafe to have you anywhere else when hostile forces are operating against me.”

The Doctor spluttered.  “I’m sure that the situation’s not that dire, Gaius.”

The Master pouted.  “This isn’t a request, Doctor.  You seem good at pulling me out of near-death situations.  I require your… expertise,” he said, fiddling weakly with the neck of the Doctor’s toga.

“Stop that,” the Doctor said, doing his best to bat the Master’s hands away.  It was a losing game, though.  This whole situation was.  He looked up to see Caesonia and Helicon sharing an exasperated eye-roll. _It’s not my fault!_   he wanted to tell them.  _This was supposed to only take five minutes..._

The Doctor could hear cheers and celebration coming from the streets below their hill.  He supposed that midnight must now be upon them, and with it, 39CE.  And so the Doctor began the new year with the Master cradled in his lap, his toga being fiddled with and eyes being rolled over him.  39CE, he hoped, could only bring better things.


	9. Hic Abundant Leones

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is a historical AU, in which the Doctor visits ancient Rome to find the emperor Caligula wearing a familiar face. In this episode! I'll let Virgil take this one: _Primaeval Earth and Juno, Mistress of the Marriage, gave their sign. The sky connived at the union; the lightning flared; on their mountain-peaks nymphs raised their cry. On that day were sown the seeds of suffering and death._

_  
Sod this,    
_   
the Doctor thought. This sodding expedition could go sod itself. It could take the sodding express train to sodding Sodsville – and all the way back again, on a sodding return ticket.Strong words, yes, but the Doctor felt that the situation warranted them. As far as situations went, this one was _highly_ stupid, made all the worse by the fact that he had only himself to blame for being there. He was sat on a beach in Northern France, sifting through endless sand (which, as you can imagine, was getting _everywhere)_ in order to collect precious sodding seashells. He was not alone in this pursuit – far from it. The entire Roman Army was engaged in this endeavour, the blazing afternoon sun bouncing off their crested helmets and ornate armour.

 

It had been really daft of him to tell the Master that seashells were legal tender in Britannia. _Really_ daft. Even by his own standards, it was a spectacularly bad lie. The Doctor lived in constant fear that parachuted officials from the Bad Liars Association were going to float down from the sky and revoke his membership card, citing gross boundary overstepping. The Doctor couldn’t blame them. This was worse than the one about leeks being given as romantic gifts, or the one about a Trojan vessel shipwrecked off Cornwall. No, the really problematic thing about this lie was that now the Master really fancied taking over Britannia. An island that traded in seashells should be a doddle to invade, or so he figured. This was why the Doctor found himself with sand under his fingernails and the back of his neck getting sun burnt – they were collecting up shells to finance this proposed landing. Funny, invasions weren’t usually paid for in the local currency. Maybe the Master was planning on going gift-shopping?

 

He’d gotten this job because the Master felt it important that the men of lower rank – he had actually referred to them as ‘worker bees’ – should see their superiors getting down to work with the rest of them. Humph. The Master certainly wasn’t getting his hands dirty. The Doctor could see him some distance off, strolling amongst the ranks. He’d be attempting light conversation with them, the Doctor knew. It would be strained, his soldiers only able to give nervous replies of “Yes, Emperor. No, Emperor. Thank you very much, Emperor.” The Master probably wouldn’t notice, though, and he’d go off thinking to himself that he was _such_ a good Emperor, and that Rome was _so_ lucky to have him leading it. Twit.

 

The Doctor wasn’t really complaining, though. This was the first time in well, months, that he’d been on his own. Solitude, blessed solitude! The freedom to relax without having to take stock of where wandering hands were heading! His ears may have been getting sunburnt, but at least they were free of whispered obscenities! Oh, the Master wasn’t too far off, but the Doctor would take whatever scraps of freedom he was given. He felt like the only kid in the playground, let loose on the monkey bars.

 

He was startled from his solitary reverie by a dark shadow falling over him. Ah, such things can only last so long. He looked up to see Helicon, silhouetted black against the sky. He had a bucket in one hand, so he could collect up everyone’s seashells, and he was swinging it about in a vaguely menacing fashion. The seashells clacked about inside it, reminding the Doctor of some of the more sinister street-corner charity collectors he had met in his time.

 

“Ho ho!” Helicon said. “The Emperor’s favourite on his hands and knees! I’m _shocked.”_

 _  
_

 _  
_

The Doctor kept his eyes down. _Don’t rise to it,_ he told himself.

 

“Tell me, Doctor, when you were – how shall we say, plying your trade back in Britannia, how much seashells would you be worth?” Helicon said, bending down a bit. “How many cat’s-eyes an hour, hmm? How many cockles a night?”

 

The men around them tittered appreciatively, and the Doctor gritted his teeth. He supposed this was what happened when you didn’t have the playground bully to protect you – the small time hopefuls moved in. Helicon, seemingly bored by the Doctor’s silence, went off to find someone else to taunt. The Doctor sighed. How he longed for this day to be over. But even so, night-time would only bring a cosy tent for two, along with the Master’s insistent pleading that he would just feel so much safer with the Doctor in bed with him. Neither of them needed much sleep, and nights tended to feel incredibly long.

 

Still, they had some good conversations. The Master told him of his childhood and youth. The detail in which he did so (the smell of the clover fields in his native Antium, Helicon’s third nipple) convinced the Doctor that his life had in fact been lived; it wasn’t just some crude synopsis created by a Chameleon Arch or equivalent. He got a rather good insight into this man, this Master that was but wasn’t.

 

“It’s for the best, really, isn’t it?” He’d said the night before, stretched out across his bed as if to emphasis that it was far too big for little old him. “I mean what good would it do to raise her in Rome, anyway? It’s no place for a child. She’s better off in Antium.” 

 

He was referring to Drusilla’s daughter, who was now an official orphan. As it turned out, Drusilla’s husband, the erstwhile Aemilius Lepidus, had been behind the attempt on Caligula’s life that had ended with him spitting out solidified belladonna alkaloid onto his dining room floor. Aemilius had hoped to replace Caligula on the throne, and had enlisted the help of the surviving Germanicus sisters, Julia and Agrippina. Lepidus had been swiftly executed, and the sisters exiled, leaving the infant without a home. As such, the Master had moved her to Antium, where the same servants that had raised him would raise her. This was several months ago now, and the Master still occasionally had ethical tussles with himself over it.

 

The Doctor ‘hmm’ed noncommittally. “You’ve never been particularly fond of her, have you?” He said, absentmindedly biting at a fingernail. “Which surprised me, to be honest. She’s your – sorry, Drusilla’s child. I’d have thought that you’d be putting up statues of her all over the place.”

 

The Master sighed. “I had such high hopes for her, Doctor, but they were dashed at her birth.”

 

“How so?” The Doctor asked, mouth full of fingernails.

 

“Well, you know my theory on how a doubled heart rate leads to a doubled life?”

 

“The hearts maketh the man, yes.”

 

The Master pulled a face. “Don’t get all regional dialect on me, Doctor. You know how I hate it. But anyway, I had hoped that she would be born with my most fortunate malady.”

 

“But she wasn’t.” It was true – Drusilla’s child was as human as they came, the owner of a single heart. This was rather surprising, actually. By all rights and laws of Mendelian genetics, the child should have been born a Time Lord. The Doctor wondered why this hadn’t occurred to him before. Sometimes he felt as if Rome and the first century were muddling up his thoughts and clouding his vision, like a mist of incomprehension rising up from the Tiber. Humans would invent nasal sprays to combat this sort of feeling sometime in the twenty-second century. Could the Doctor be naughty and slip a list of the raw ingredients in someone’s toga pocket? Best not. Who knew how quickly they would start getting things done?

 

“If she had been born like me, I expect that I probably would have renamed Rome after her,” the Master was saying. “As it is, she disappointed me, and killed Drusilla by proxy. Is it any wonder that I can barely stand to look at her?”

 

“I suppose not,” the Doctor said. “So it really matters that much to you, does it? Meeting someone with an extra heart?”

 

“Oh, more than anything,” the Master said, nodding. “I had so hoped that the condition would manifest itself in her, the way these things sometimes do in families. But no! My immediate family are all dead, and I have no virgin aunts with my condition. I fear that I will never meet someone like me, and oh, how I want to! Imagine the things we could accomplish!”

 

“It hardly bears thinking about,” the Doctor muttered, crossing his arms over his chest.

 

“That’s why I’m so keen to get to Britannia – or one of the reasons,” the Master continued, evidently unhearing. “I so want to meet the prince that you told Helicon about – the one with the same condition?”

 

“A prince?” Bugger, when had he said that? He should really start writing these down. Ah well, best run with it. “Oh yes, _that_ prince. Well, I should warn you that he’s notoriously unfriendly. You have to perform a series of Herculean labours before you can even knock on his door. You have to charm the birds from the trees, sell coal to Newcastle, stuff like that.”

 

The Master shrugged. “I’m sure I’ll manage.”

 

“Actually, _actually,_ I think he might have died. Yeah, might’ve been him. He was trampled by a horde of Hereford cattle whilst out for his morning walk one… morning.” The Doctor was babbling, but it barely mattered. He could say that the cows had been protesting for better working conditions, and the Master would probably believe him. It was hilarious and depressing, all at the same time.

 

“Does that sort of thing happen in Britannia all that time?” The Master asked.

 

The Doctor nodded enthusiastically. “Oh yes. It’s why I had to leave, you know. You risk your life just crossing the street, and the food’s _rubbish_.”

 

The Master was silent for a moment. “Sometimes I think that you don’t want me to go to Britannia,” he eventually murmured.

 

The Doctor shrugged. He supposed that visiting the ancient Britons would be quite fun, but explaining why none of the Royal family recognised him would be less so. You could only play the ‘mass amnesia’ card so many times, and the Doctor wasn’t feeling particularly lucky.

 

“I’ll go, you know,” the Master said. “Your reticence won’t stop me. Besides, I want to meet the locals. Do they look like you, Doctor? They must dress like you, at the very least. I think it’ll be fantastic.” He paused. “You know, this is a very big bed that I have to myself here…”

 

The Doctor groaned. “No, no, no,” he said. “We are not starting that up again. Good night, Emperor.” He stuck his fingers in his ears and buried his face in the pillow before the Master could get another word in. A thought occurred to him as he lay there, his breathing heavy. Caligula had never made it to Britain – it would be under poor gimpy Claudius that the Romans did so, if the Doctor’s history was right (which, let’s face it, it was). If he remembered correctly, they’d faffed about in France for a wee while before giving up and going home. They didn’t even make it across the Channel. The Doctor supposed that something would happen in the next few days to dampen the Master’s enthusiasm.

 

The Doctor, looking at him now in the bright light of day, doubted that the Master’s enthusiasm would ever be anything less than parched. He practically bounced up to the Doctor, clapping his hands with glee.

 

“Isn’t this exciting?” He said. “Everyone’s worked so well. We’ve got mountains of shells, I swear. We’ll buy Britannia out from under them! Ha ha! Oh Doctor, this will be fantastic. An invasion, and I get to meet your cousins!”

 

“I can hardly contain myself,” the Doctor said dryly.

 

The Master laughed. “Save it for tonight, dear Doctor,” he said, ruffling the Doctor’s hair in a gesture that went beyond affection. He gave the Doctor an exaggerated wink, and _skipped_ off, flagging down a military advisor to discuss… war stuff, the Doctor supposed.

 

All the men in a twenty-mile radius of this conversation were sniggering, or so it seemed. The Doctor refused to meet their gazes. Face flaming, he dug his hands deep into the sand, continuing the search for the Master’s precious sodding seashells.

 

*

 

It was funny, the things that Time lords could get to talking about – even if one member of the conversation was oblivious to the exclusive nature of it. It was the next morning, and the Master was talking about sleep.

 

“Thing is,” he said, “I’d always thought that rubbing the sleep out of one’s eyes was a metaphor. But it’s not!”

 

“No,” the Doctor said, mildly amused.

 

“Everyone else, they get mucus in their eyes when they sleep,” the Master continued, his tone utterly disgusted. “Because they sleep for so bloody long. _Eurgh **.”**_

 **  
 _  
_**

 ** _  
_  
**

“It is unpleasant.”

 

“Unpleasant? Doctor, it’s revolting. They lie there like the dead, their noses and eyes getting their functions confused. It’s for no good reason, so far as I can see,” he shuddered. “I’m so glad that I don’t need much sleep. I suppose it’s something to do with my hearts, isn’t it?”

 

“That would make sense,” the Doctor said, stretching languidly across his camp bed. He stopped when he saw the Master’s expression.

 

“Funny thing,” the Master said, “I’ve never seen your eyes encrusted with mucus.”

 

How funny that romance should be named for the Romans! “Ah well, I’m fastidious with my hygiene, aren’t I?”

 

The Master gave his now-is-seduction-time grin. “I bet you are.”

 

 _  
Just think, Doctor, there once was a time when you make innocuous statements and not have them twisted into pick-up lines. Incredible!  
_  
His thoughts were cut short by loud drumming. Evidently, the drummer boys thought that the best place to practice was right outside the Imperial tent. The rhythm was all too familiar to the Doctor – dum-dum-da-dum, dum-dum-da-dum. He watched the Master’s face apprehensively, but he only seemed mildly annoyed. His features grew amused when Helicon’s voice cut into the fracas.

 

“Get out of it!” He bellowed. “What do you think you’re doing, making that kind of noise? The Emperor is asleep in there! If I catch you doing this again, boys, I will personally see to it that you never reach puberty. Now fucking go!”

 

The boys ran off (the Doctor could have sworn he heard them squeaking), and Helicon poked his head in. “Sorry ‘bout that, Emperor. Kids, you know. I can have them punished, if you like?” He asked, voice rather hopeful.

 

The Master laughed and shook his head. “No, Helicon. I think you’ve dished out punishment enough for today. Come in, why don’t you?”

 

Helicon walked in and settled himself awkwardly at the end of the Master’s bed. He shot the Doctor a look that plainly said ‘I would be sticking my tongue out at you right now, if not for the presence of a Roman Emperor in the room’. “So what’s our plan for today then?” He asked. “More shells?”

 

“Yes, I expect so,” the Master said. The Doctor’s hearts sank, and this must have shown on his face, for the Master chuckled. “Fret not, Doctor,” he said. “You can step down from that pedestal I’ve placed you on. We’re doing something completely different today.”

 

The Doctor didn’t much like the sound of that. “Hmm?”

 

“Oh yes,” the Master said. “You’ll like it. I promise.”The Doctor groaned.

Half an hour later, the three men were dressed, fed, and on horseback (in that order). Several young pages joined them, all looking rather frightened. The Master trotted amongst the group, outlining the plan for the day.

 

“I have been informed by a reliable source – well, a bloke that Helicon met at the Taverna last night – that there are lions roaming in the forests near here,” he said. “I want to find one. Alternatively, I want one of you lot to find one, and then say in a loud and clear voice ‘Oh Caligula! I have found a lion for you.’ I shall then kill it. Any questions?”

 

Helicon raised his hand. “This weather doesn’t look great, Gaius.” He had a point – it was grey and overcast, the air heavy with oncoming rain.

 

The Master polished the head of a spear with an affectedly casual air. “That’s a statement, Helicon,” he said in a sing-song voice. “I asked for questions, but I’m actually not particularly interested in what anyone else has to say. Right then! Off we go! Doctor, you stay by my side.”

 

The group dispersed, the Doctor keeping pace with the Master. “Lions, eh?” The Doctor inquired.

 

“Absolutely. Tell me, do they know of Hercules in Britannia?”

 

“Oh yes. There’s a village named after him somewhere in the Cotswolds.”

 

“Right. So when I step foot on British soil, dressed in his trademark lion skin, the locals will be suitably impressed?”

 

“Impressed, bewildered, terrified…”

 

“Excellent!”

 

“Tell you what – arrive on horseback and they’ll think that you’re a god.”

 

The Master grinned. “I like the way you think, Doctor.”

 

The two spent most of the morning searching fruitlessly. Every half-glimpsed streak of gold fur turned out to be bark, every roar came from the river running through the woods. They didn’t see so much as a ginger tomcat. The Master didn’t seem to mind too much, however. His boyish enthusiasm wasn’t dampened, not by continual disappointment, or the light drizzle that started not long after they had set off. This rain got worse during the day, till it was practically bucketing down by lunchtime.

 

The Doctor’s horse was slipping about all over the place. This wasn’t good. “Gaius!” He called out. “Do you think we should stop for a bit?”

 

“Oh no, Doctor!” The Master called back. “The best hunting is done in the rain, don’t you know? And anyway – you’re so fetching when wet!”

 

The Doctor rolled his eyes. He was willing do bet that the Master would make a joke about good chemistry in the middle of a nuclear apocalypse. Thunder rolled ominously in the distance, and the Doctor’s horse seemed close to spooking. “Really, Gaius! I don’t think we’re safe out here. As your official protector person -”

 

“All right, all right,” the Master said, struggling to keep his own horse under control. “Look! There’s a cave right there where we can shelter.”

 

They rode up to it and dismounted. “How convenient,” the Doctor remarked.

 

“Fortune favours the brave, no?” The Master smirked. “Oh no, don’t! Oh, stupid creatures!” Lightning had struck fairly near their cave, and the horses had run off, spooked beyond all measure.

 

“Idiot beasts,” the Master muttered. “That’s it, run _into_ the storm. Very clever. Incitatus would never be so daft. I so wish I hadn’t left him in Rome.”

 

“His city needed him,” the Doctor said dryly.

 

“Hmm. So I guess we’re stranded until the storm stops. Do you have the apple cakes?”

 

“No, that was Helicon.”

 

“Bugger. Well Doctor, I guess we’ll have to amuse ourselves, won’t we?”

 

“Ooh, let’s do charades!” Actually, the Doctor was rather interested in the cave’s interior. It was a perfectly nice cave – nothing like that ghastly misery pit he had seen in the Master’s dream, but sadly free of Palaeolithic cave paintings. Martha had once mentioned that there were blue boxes painted on French caves. He certainly hadn’t been responsible, but maybe this was the time. He turned to the Master. “You wouldn’t have a blue crayon, would you?”

 

He stopped dead at the Master’s expression. He was moving towards the Doctor slowly, his face lit up by occasional flashes of lightning from the sky outside. The cave was beginning to feel like some demented discotheque for two.

 

“Enough words,” he murmured. “Enough stupid questions. Enough trivia about your homeland. This, Doctor, is how Romans communicate.”He grabbed the Doctor’s head and brought it to his own, their lips meeting in a bruising kiss.

 

This wasn’t a kiss that asked permission, a tentative testing of the waters. No, this was a kiss that _took_ , the Master communicating with his tongue, teeth and lips that he was tired of waiting, that the Doctor was _his_. The Doctor felt as if he were wilting under the Master’s onslaught. However, when the Master moved his hand lower, he realised that the metaphor did not extend to all his anatomy.

 

“Oh my, Doctor,” the Master whispered against his neck. “So very needy. We’ve only kissed and you’re already in this state.” He began stroking, his rhythm slow and bloody perfect. The Doctor whimpered, arching into the Master’s touch. He heard the Master chuckle into his ear.

 

“And to think how long you’ve kept me waiting. It’s months that I’ve wanted this, Doctor. _Months_. I don’t think I’ve waited so long for anything in my life. Let’s see if anticipation sweetens the experience, hmm?” 

 

The Doctor was open-mouthed. The Master was nibbling his earlobe. Why on earth would he do that? And furthermore, why was the Doctor enjoying it so much? He had to keep his wits about him, but oh, his head was swimming and his hearts were beating, and the Master’s hand was moving and he could barely even think. “Gaius, we should really stop, we can’t – oh!” The Master was doing something delightful with his fingers – delightful yes, but positively evil. The Doctor tried to frown but found it almost impossible.

 

“As if you could stop me now,” the Master said. “You want this, Doctor. And I’ll have you pretending that you don’t like it, if that’s what you’re into. But -” he punctuated his words with a squeeze that had the Doctor seeing stars. “You’re the worst actor I’ve seen in some time.” He broke away suddenly, the Doctor gasping at the sudden loss of contact. The Master smirked at him. _Bastard._

 _  
_

 _  
_

“Tunic off,” he said. “And turn around. Hands against the wall there.”

 

The Doctor hesitated for a second. Sex with the Master would change everything – but he’d been wasting his time in Rome for more than a year now, and god, would change be such a bad thing? In any case, the Master would never give up, and he could hardly pretend that he wasn’t interested. Face flaming, the Doctor disrobed.

 

He heard the Master exhale heavily from behind him. “Perfect,” he said, voice thick. The Doctor heard the Master rustling through his bag, and what sounded like something being unscrewed. He turned around to see that the Master was naked, and fiddling with a small clay vial. Lightning flashed, and the Doctor saw that the Master’s fingers were shiny.

 

“Seriously?” The Doctor asked, incredulous. “We go hunting, and you bring lube?”

 

The Master chuckled. “To be honest, I never leave the house without it. Now tell me – have you done this before?”He slipped a finger inside the Doctor, who gasped at the sudden intrusion. “Because it certainly feels like you haven’t,” the Master continued. “By the gods, I don’t think I‘ve ever had anyone this tight.”

 

The Doctor screwed his eyes shut tightly and bit his lip, but even that couldn’t hold the moan that escaped him when the Master added another finger and fucking _twisted_. “Oh, you’ll like this, Doctor,” the Master said from above this. “As will I. Being your first, how lucky am I? Deflowering the Doctor. It sounds like one of those scrolls you’re always reading. Maybe I should write it?” He withdrew his fingers suddenly, leaving the Doctor feeling oddly empty.

 

“Right then,” the Master said, placing himself at the Doctor’s entrance. “Ready?” He pushed in before the Doctor had time to answer. “Of course you’re ready,” he muttered. “You’ve been ready for this all your life, you little tart. Fuck, you’re so tight.” The Doctor scrabbled uselessly at the wall in front of him as the Master built up a rhythm inside of him. “So tight,” the Master repeated, “And you’re not hot, you’re not burning me like everyone else does. Oh Doctor, you’re perfect.”

 

The Doctor could feel it beginning, the thing he so dreaded. It was there all right, he could feel the sparks of consciousness unfurling in amongst the physical onslaught. Maybe if the Doctor focused on the corporeal aspects of the act, he could prevent it from going full-blown. So he focused on the Master, the bruising hands on his hips, the feeling of the Master moving within him, now fast and hard and relentless. Try as he might – and distracting though the sensations were – he couldn’t stop what was happening, and when he found himself thinking _Oh yes, so fucking tight,_ he knew that the psychic link had been established.

 

The Master stilled immediately. “What is this?” he said, and the Doctor heard it in his ears and brain. “I can feel you, and I can feel me, and I can feel me in you, and…” he trailed off, trying to take it all in. The Doctor could feel his confusion, his uncertainty. They were silent for a moment, then the Master said, “And if I go like this it’ll feel fantastic.” He began moving his hips again, hard, changing his angle. Both men moaned.

 

 _  
“Doesn’t this frighten you?”  
_  
The Doctor asked in his head. __

 _  
_

 _  
_

 _  
“No,”  
_  
the Master responded _. “Why would it? This is the best I’ve ever had.”_

 _  
_

 _  
_

 _  
“Fair enough.”  
_

 

The Master reached around and took the Doctor in hand. The Doctor shuddered. _Oh yes,_ came the Master’s voice in his head. _You like that. I so want you to feel good, Doctor. Go on, feel it._ And as the Master commanded it, fireworks of pleasure exploded in the Doctor’s brain. _Yes, yes, like that._ The Master kept at it, his hand on the Doctor’s cock and his mind caressing the Doctor’s. It was so good, so fucking good. The Doctor hadn’t experienced anything like this in centuries, and it was all open for the Master to see, and oh god, he didn’t care. It was too much, too powerful. He was shaking, falling apart, he couldn’t possibly survive the sheer onslaught of feeling, and the Master was absolutely loving it, and as a result, so was he. 

 

 _  
Come for me, Doctor,  
_  
the Master commanded him from inside his own head, and the Doctor had little choice but to obey. Orgasm left him momentarily blind, his awareness narrowed to the Master, his hands, cock and mind invading the Doctor completely.

 

“I feel like Poland,” he muttered when he was again able to speak.

 

The Master laughed. “You’re speaking nonsense, Doctor. Have I broken you? Well I’m sorry, but this isn’t over yet.” He punctuated the statement with a roll of his hips that had the Doctor groaning.

 

The Master kept moving, hips going so fast that the Doctor felt that they must have been a blur. He was generous enough to relay the sensation back to the Doctor, so that even after orgasm, he could continue being an utterly undignified quivering wreck, able only to push back against the Master and moan weakly. _Bastard._

 _  
_

 _  
_

The Master was close. The Doctor could feel it in his erratic movements and frustrated thoughts. He needed something more, something to get him over the edge, but what? He leaned down over the Doctor and hissed in his ear.

 

“Say my name.”

 

The Doctor groaned. “God, really? All this time, and you’re still fixated on that?”

 

The Master slammed into him. “Say it, Doctor.”

 

“But it’s – uh, oh fuck – such a cliché.”

 

“Doctor,” he hissed, sending more sparks of pleasure into the Doctor’s brain. “Say my name.”

 

“Oh god, oh god, oh Ma- Gaius,” the Doctor babbled as he bucked uselessly, lost to the throes of rapture.

 

The Master kept moving. “That’s not enough,” he said through gritted teeth.

 

“Caligula?”Nothing, just the unrelenting friction and movement.

 

“You have it in you, Doctor,” the Master panted. “I know it.”He sent a massive jolt of pleasure into the Doctor’s mind. “Come on.”

 

The Doctor couldn’t help it this time. “Master, oh Master, thank you, oh hell -”

 

That was it. The Master came hard, scratching at the Doctor’s chest, biting at his shoulders, emptying a litany of deities and curses into the Doctor’s ear. The Doctor, by wonder of neural relay, was swept away with it, shaking and twitching until the Master’s last. It was a miracle that he managed to stay upright.

 

The Master rested his head against the Doctor’s back, breathing heavily. The psychic link was still there, though fading with the slowing of their heartbeats. Snatches of thoughts made their way through. _Some people never change. What’s Poland?_ The Doctor smiled lazily. The Master had a point about this sex business – it was fun. True, he was sore, and it was all going to go to hell in a hand basket very shortly, but he could enjoy this moment, utterly dazed and exhausted with pleasure, feeling the Master’s breath against his back. He didn’t even stop smiling when the last thought came through the flickering and spluttering psychic connection. _What’s this?_ He could hear the Master thinking. _The Doctor has two heartbeats?_


	10. Mutatis Mutandis

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is a historical AU, in which the Doctor visits ancient Rome to find the emperor Caligula wearing a familiar face. In this episode! The Doctor and the Master recover from their encounter in the cave.

The Master was up and away before the Doctor had time to make up another outrageous lie. _Wait!_ He felt like saying. _It’s a British thing. Physical ex_   
!   
_ertion makes us grow another heart. They say it’s a side effect of excessive cauliflower consumption._ Hmm, somehow he didn’t think that would cut it. He’d fucked up. He’d fucked up being fucked, and that really took a special sort of talent. He contemplated banging his head against the cave wall, but decided against it. The way things were going, it was best not to give the Master any ideas.

 

The Doctor’s companion – the word ‘lover’ crossed his mind, but brought with it images of ripped bodices and inappropriately placed chocolate bon bons – was standing at the cave’s entrance, looking small and utterly confused. The Doctor supposed that the Master – and was he the Master now? Could he call him that? He was up moniker creek without a paddle – had just received a rather nasty shock. On one hand, his dearest wish had been   
realised   
, and so technically he should be pleased. On the other hand, he _was_ the Master, and the Doctor had just been discovered to be concealing a rather important secret. The Doctor was torn – should he sit the Master down, explain everything and try to get the bottom of this mystery? Or should he run, stark naked and screaming, from this cursed cave?

 

The Master, face turned away from the Doctor, spoke first. “Were you going to, at any point, tell me about your hearts?” he asked, his voice slightly hoarse.

 

“Um. That.” The Doctor rubbed the back of his head sheepishly. “Well, yes. I was just taking my time, wasn’t I?. Building you up to it, that sort of thing.” Nothing. The Master simply stood there, fists clenching and unclenching at his sides. The Doctor, unable to stop himself, continued. “And you know, we have this saying in Britannia: A wise man respects the wishes of those who repeatedly say that they don’t want to sleep with him. A real pearl of wisdom, no?”

 

“Yes, because you put up _such_ a fight just then, Doctor.”

 

The Doctor was glad for the darkness of the cave. The    
colour   
in his cheeks was most undignified.    
“Look, that aside- “

 

“I had wondered why you resisted me for so many months,” the Master broke him off. “It was for such a long time, and you wanted it so badly. Anyone could tell. I thought that you’d taken a vow of celibacy or something, but no. You’re just a secretive little tart, same as the rest of them.”

 

“I take that as insult to my maidenly virtue,” the Doctor muttered.

 

The Master snorted. “Whose maidenly virtue?”

 

“I’m not sure. It was lent to me awhile ago and it doesn’t seem to have a name on it.” The Doctor’s attempt at light-hearted banter fell as flat as Troy when the Greeks were done with it. The Master spun around to face him, eyes blazing.

 

“Do you think this is funny, Doctor?” He bellowed, voice echoing off the cave walls. “I don’t find being kept in the dark amusing, not at all!”

 

“I know, Master. I know. Look, I’ll explain it all if you’ll just give me a minute.”

 

The Master rolled his eyes. “You may not have noticed, but we’ve actually broken apart from our coital embrace. A pleasing improvisation though it was, calling me your master will not earn you my favour.”

 

“Oh, so you’re definitely Caligula again?” The Doctor said, voice weary. “I’m going to have to start writing it down.”

 

“Well of course I’m Caligula,” the Master said impatiently. “Who else would I be?”

 

“Oh, no one important,” the Doctor said. “I suppose it’s for the best, really. I couldn’t very well go around calling you Master, could I? Even in ancient Rome, that’s a bit off. I mean, there’s kinky, and then there’s megalomania.”

 

The Master looked utterly bewildered. “What on earth are you on about? And what do you mean, _ancient_ Rome?”

 

“It’s just to differentiate. We have a new Rome down in Cornwall. It’s quite nice, actually. Good beaches. But please -” he broke off to give the Master a superlatively earnest look, “will you let me explain? It’s rather important that I do.”

 

The Master shook his head. “Oh, Doctor. I know all about your explanations. It’ll involve a vegetable of some sort – asparagus, let’s say. There’ll be an animal – a cat, perhaps – and some ridiculously named locale – you were talking about Hull yesterday, whatever that’s supposed to be. I’ll end up more confused than when I started, my questions remaining unanswered. There you go!” He clapped his hands together. “I’ve saved you the trouble!”

 

The Doctor frowned. “Well, if you’re going to be like that...”

 

“You seem to forget, Doctor, that I’m the Emperor of Rome. I’m your lord, and yes, master. I’ll be how I want to be.”

 

The two stood in silence for a moment, each doing their best to stare the other down. The Doctor felt as if he had stumbled into a Spaghetti Western – a straight-to-video one where the protagonists were naked.

 

In a cave.

 

In first-century France.

 

On that note, who was the sheriff and who was the outlaw?

 

The Master eventually threw up his hands up in defeat. “I don’t know what to do!” he cried. “I’ve waited all my life to meet someone like me. I find him – and then I fuck him – and he’s completely duplicitous. What am I supposed to do now?”

 

“Listen to me,” the Doctor said. “Please. I can help you.” He held his hand out in a reconciliatory gesture. “I’m not _completely_ duplicitous, I promise.”

 

The Master slapped his hand away. “I’ve had enough of your promises. Now, I am going to go out there-” he pointed to the forest outside the cave, “and I am going to ponder your fate. Being sold into slavery would only satisfy your martyr complex and crucifixion would be far too good for you.”

 

“Oh, wait!” But the Master was gone, stumbling out into the sunlight. The Doctor stood dumbly for a minute. Well, that had gone well. They should so this sort of thing more often, they really should. Hmm. It would probably be wise to go after the Master. After all, there were lions out there. Some bloke that Helicon had met at the taverna said so! The Doctor scooped up their stuff, getting tunics tangles together, and spilling lube all over everything. Honestly, would the Master ever learn to put lids on properly? He allowed himself a small smile, remembering the time when the Master had left out a jar of priceless Cybellline solution to dry overnight. Their masters at the Academy had been furious. What a git the Master had made of himself! Still, it had been very funny... The Doctor shook his head and raced out after his old friend.

 

The first thing he noticed was that the storm had cleared. Well, wasn’t that bloody convenient? The Doctor mentally shook his fist at the gods of inclement weather and situational engineering. He could see the Master ahead of him, the tentative post-storm sunlight rendering his skinny arse lily-white against the muted greens and browns of the forest.

 

“Gaius!” He called out. “Where are you going? It’s miles from the camp, and I have your clothes.”

 

“I’m going anywhere you’re not, Doctor,” came the reply, “and I’ll walk there naked if I have to.”

 

“What if lions get you? Eh?They’re around here. Apparently.”

 

“Lions are everywhere if you know where to look for them.”

 

“Oh, Master. Don’t be like that,” the Doctor said without thinking.

 

“I told you not to call me your master – oh, thank the gods.”

 

The Doctor groaned. Helicon and his youthful retinue had ridden onto the scene. They were soaked to the bone and looked thoroughly miserable, though Helicon’s face lit up when he surveyed the sorry pair in front of him. Finding the Doctor naked and being admonished for addressing his boss in what sounded like a kinky endearment – it couldn’t get much better than this for him. The Doctor, shamefaced, turned his back on him, only to hear Helicon give a sharp intake of breath. Ah, yes. He had the Master’s come dripping down his thighs. Oh dear.

 

“Now is not the time, Helicon,” he heard the Master say. “I need you to give me a ride back to the camp.”

 

“Where did your horses get to?” Helicon asked, obviously wanting to stick around and prolong the Doctor’s torment. He was a charming fellow, he really was.

 

“Never mind that,” the Master said, tone clipped and terse.

 

“Of course, Emperor.” Helicon was suddenly the voice of propriety. “Did you want to... uh...” He tailed off, and the Doctor turned around to see him gesture feebly at the Master’s nakedness.

 

The Master huffed and stomped over to the Doctor, resolutely refusing to make eye contact. He snatched the bundle of clothes from his arms. “Eurgh,” he said, “they’re all sticky”, earning an audible snicker from Helicon. “Shut it,” the Master said, but without much conviction. He wriggled into a tunic – the Doctor’s, in fact, and he had it on back to front – and walked back to Helicon, quickly climbing up onto his horse.

Helicon took the reins, gave the Doctor one last smirk and took off, his horse kicking up mud at the Doctor as it went. No matter! The Doctor had the Master’s tunic to clean it up with. He smiled as he did so, knowing that petty revenges could still be his.

 

*

 

The Doctor arrived back at the camp just in time to observe... well, nothing actually happening. He breathed a sigh of relief. He’d feared a lynch-mob type scenario, Doctor-shaped papier-mâché piñatas strung to a makeshift gallows. Luckily, he had nothing to fear. The men were either ignorant of his recent unpopularity, or simply too lethargic to care. They were lounging – no other word could describe them – around the camp, doing all the things that you’d expect Roman soldiers to get up to in their downtime. The Doctor observed men eating grapes, playing lyres, polishing armour – that sort of thing. It wouldn’t have been a surprise to see one chipping away at a block of marble. They must’ve decided to clock off early in the absence of their highly esteemed leader. Hmm, the Master wouldn’t be too pleased about that. Speaking of which, where was he?

 

The Doctor scanned the periphery till he spotted his... friend? Lover? (yech) Executioner? He was sitting outside the tent of a top general, talking animatedly with a group of military advisors. They had Important War Stuff to discuss, the Doctor supposed. The Master was good with Important War Stuff. Better than he was with pillow talk, anyway. Further along, the Doctor spotted Helicon entertaining a particularly large group. He couldn’t hear the joke from where he was standing, but given that the punch-line seemed centred around Helicon bending over, he could guess the subject matter. The Doctor slinked off to his tent before he could be branded a sodomite or enemy of the empire.

 

He gave himself the most thorough sponge-bath of his life and changed into a fresh tunic. It itched worse than ever against his overly sensitive skin – which really was a state; he had bruises and scratches that could probably serve as a map of some obscure locale. His hearts ached for sharp tailoring, a nice cotton-polyester blend. He’d never thought that he could miss buttons and flies so completely.

 

The thing was, he’d been telling himself for quite a while – the Doctor realised with faint horror that to say years would not be an exaggeration – that it’d all be over soon. The Master would eventually wake up to his essential Time Lord-iness, the floodgates would open and the memories would be restored in all their Technicolor glory. He’d have his old friend back, and they’d go skipping off into the sunset. Or something. But no – the Master had even been exposed to the psychic link, and still managed to cling onto the pathetic delusion of his own humanity. It was frustrating, to say the least. The Doctor wanted to rub the Master’s face in his Time Lord biology (metaphorically speaking, of course), and force him to look in the mirror. He wanted to grab the Master by the shoulders and shake some sense into him. He wanted to climb to the top of the Colosseum (which hadn’t actually been built yet, but such details were arbitrary) and shout it to the city. “Your Emperor is an alien! He’s also a complete bastard, and a rather good shag, and I'm taking him with me!”

 

The Doctor flopped down heavily on his camp bed and groaned. Self-pity coursed through his veins, as heavy and intoxicating as the foulest unmixed wine.It was incredibly rubbish being him, at times. Other people had normal enemies, and they sounded simply marvellous to deal with. They showed up to showdowns armed with mere bazookas and a nice simple death wish. The Master? He brought lube, amnesia, and the full might of the Roman Empire. He always had to make such a song and dance over their encounters, didn’t he? The Doctor would have dearly loved to make a feeble joke about the Master having to compensate for something. Following the events of that morning, however, the Doctor could categorically say that such a statement would be untrue. Bastard. __

 _  
_

_  
_

The Doctor needed something to take his mind off things. Stewing in his own self-pity and over-thinking matters never did him much good. Besides, if the Master was going to have him swiftly executed, he’d rather not spend his last night alive acting out a Morrissey song. He sat up and began rifling through the bag he kept by his bed. He’d packed a few scrolls, just for show, really; old favourites like ‘Creusa Works Her Way Through The Underworld’ and ‘The Dionysus Diaries’. These were all well and good, but it was what lay underneath that was really interesting.

 

A ha! Here we go! He pulled out his paperback, wrapped up and hidden in a tunic that he never wore (he’d spilled wine on it while trying to keep the Master’s hands at bay). The picture of the floating Colosseum on the front made him feel oddly reassured. The Doctor had managed to stuff things up pretty badly, but he was barely a patch on the brave men and women of the Dardan Empire. He found his bookmark – still embarrassingly near the front, but he could hardly read this with the Master around, could he? – and began to read.

 

  
_  
KALENDIS FEBRVARIIS   
_   


  
_  
_

_  
_   


_  
Well, there goes our third shipment of marble. We turn around and it’s gone, sunk forever into the atmosphere. We wouldn’t complain – it isn’t Roman to whine – only, it is quite expensive, and we do need it. I mean, how can we build Rome without marble? Julius, in particular, really wants to get started on the Colosseum project. I’d sooner have accommodation than an amphitheatre, but hey, I'm old fashioned like that.   
_

_  
We were discussing the problem at a meeting before – at the senate, I think I’m supposed to say. Marcus had the bright idea of doing it in an inflatable style, so that it wouldn’t be quite so sinkable. I like Mark, but he can be a bit thick at times. Anyway, his wife Octavia got a bit snippy and informed him that the Neo-Dadaists have their own planet, thankyouverymuch. So now they’re not talking, and I hear that our resident lawyer, Regulus, is looking through the scrolls to see if the Romans permitted divorce. A shame, they used to be such a sweet couple.   
_

_  
You can see his point though. A bouncy castle Colosseum would be great fun, wouldn’t it?   
_

_  
_

_  
_

_  
Numa Fabricus X.   
_

_  
_

_  
_

Huh. They thought they had problems? The Doctor would give his right heart to lose a shipment of marble, he really would. He turned the page with a tad too much force and kept reading.

 

  
_  
ANTE DIEM III NONAS FEBRVARIAS   
_   


  
_  
_

_  
_   


_  
Julius stomping around like he owns the place. I don’t remember electing him as leader. Ah, that would be because I didn’t. Sometimes I think that I’d rather be re-creating the Roman republic.   
_

_  
_

_  
_

The Doctor was disturbed from the plight of Numa Fabricus by a soft cough from outside his tent. He looked up to see a familiar, toga-wearing shape silhouetted against the fabric. Oh bugger. Arsing tit wank. The Doctor mentally raced through all the expletives he could think off as he hurriedly shoved his book out of sight. He was frantic. Did he look presentable? Oh, did it matter? That said, if he was going to die, it would be best to leave a tidy corpse.

 

“Um,” he said, “You can come in... if you like.” Hmm. It was very unMaster-y of the Master to wait for permission to enter his own tent.

 

The Master stepped in, his manner almost cautious. He looked rather tired, and seemed dwarfed by his massive toga. The pair were silent for a moment, before the Master cleared his throat and said, somewhat awkwardly, “Ah. You’ve changed.”

 

The Doctor fixed him in a steady gaze. “We both have. Several times, in fact.”

 

The Master’s face grew confused. “Uh, well you might have, but I just put this on,” he said, tugging at his toga.

 

The Doctor felt a prize idiot. Of course the Master was talking about clothes. He had to ditch this terrible habit of mining his surroundings for subtext. “Yes, I mean, but-”

 

“I brought you something,” the Master said abruptly, cutting him off. 

 

The Doctor eyed him warily. This couldn’t be good. It could be several things – a stick of innovative first-century dynamite, a rabid animal, a strongly worded note of disapproval – but it couldn’t be good. “Oh yes?”

 

“Yeah. I hope you like them,” the Master said, producing a bunch of leeks from behind his back. The Doctor blinked a few timed and accepted the gift. They looked perfectly benign. Well, they weren’t covered in bees or anything like that.

 

“Thanks,” he said. “Find me a chicken and I’ll bake us a pie.”

 

The Master fidgeted. “It’s just, I remembered what you told me about Britannia, how you give leeks to each other when... you know...”

 

“Oh. _Oh._ ” That’s right. The Doctor dimly recalled saying something about leeks being given like flowers, a savoury and romantic gesture. Bloody hell. This was unexpected. “They’re lovely,” he said. “Positively gorgeous. I’ll just go put them in some water.” He moved to get up, but the Master stopped him.

 

“Never mind that,” he said, taking the leeks from the Doctor’s hands and placing them gently on the floor. “They’re not important.”

 

“They are,” the Doctor protested. “You went to the trouble of getting them, and look how artfully arranged they are. Anyway-” He was cut short by the Master, or more specifically, the Master kissing him. This was still fairly novel in of itself, but the Master’s methods made it all the more so. It was a _gentle_ kiss. The Doctor would even go so far as to say it was _sweet,_ the Master’s lips softly ghosting along his own. It was quite lovely, in spite of everything, and the Doctor found it quite easy to close his eyes and surrender himself to it.

 

The Master was guiding them back onto the camp bed, settling their limbs together in a comfortable jumble. Um,” the Doctor said, “Wouldn’t you rather we were on your bed? It’s bigger. Too big for little old you, you’ve said so many times -”

 

The Master shut him up with another kiss. “Stop babbling,” he said. “Why are you so nervous?”

 

The Doctor raised an eyebrow and the Master grinned sheepishly. “Ah, that whole I’m-going-to-kill-you thing. Right, sorry. I’ve gotten over that, you know.”

 

“I’m _ever_ so glad.”

 

“Hmm. Well, I’m not pleased about you keeping this a secret,” the Master said, his hand drifting to the Doctor’s second heart. “But I can see why you felt you had to.”

 

“Oh really?”

 

The Master nodded earnestly. “Oh yes. You come from a barbarous land, Doctor, where people possessing our condition get herds of angry cattle set upon them. The persecution you must have suffered! I mean, I’m an Emperor, and I have to keep to keep it a secret. I can’t imagine how it must be for a commoner.”

 

The Doctor shrugged. “I do my best to get by.” He paused to observe the Master closely. “So you’re really not mad then? You seem to have had quite the turn around.”

 

“Oh, you must ignore me when I get like that, Doctor. Believe me, I am truly sorry. I had this massive headache – I still do, actually – and couldn’t think straight.”

 

“Poor thing,” the Doctor murmured.

 

“It’s the strangest thing,” the Master said, frowning. “I say it’s a headache, but it’s not really, not at all. It’s more like a rhythm repeating itself endlessly in my head. It’s driving me to distraction.”

 

The Doctor froze. “A rhythm?” He whispered.

 

“Yes, like this.” The Master began tapping his fingers against the Doctor’s chest. The familiar time signature hit him, unpleasant as a bucket of ice water. Shivering, he pushed the Master’s hand off.

 

“You hear that rhythm in your head?” He asked. “Like drumming?”

 

“Yes, yes exactly!” The Master said, rubbing his temples.”I’ve had it in my head since... the cave, I think. I expect it will go away eventually. Even now it seems to be lessening, but it’s still incredibly loud. It’s almost hard to believe that they aren’t real. Listen, Doctor. Close your eyes and tell me if you can hear them.”

 

The Doctor, trembling, did as instructed. There was nothing. Of course there was nothing. Just because the Master had got himself re-infected didn’t mean that he’d caught the bloody drumming disease. This was silly, he shouldn’t humour the Master – oh god, what was that?

 

There was a rhythm. Hey could plainly hear it, the beat incredibly loud and frustratingly out of sync with his heartbeats. It was real, it was tangible, it was his, he was going to go mad like the Master, oh dear –

And then Helicon’s voice cut in. “What did I tell you boys?” He was shouting. “We do not practice outside the Emperor’s tent!” The Doctor opened his eyes to see the silhouettes of four children outside the tent, an imposing Helicon-shaped shadow looming over them. Oh, thank goodness.

 

Helicon poked his head inside the tent. “Emperor, I’m sorry, but I – Oh.” His mouth fell open at the sight of the Doctor and the Master in bed together – the Doctor supposed that an onlooker might describe it as _cuddling,_ good grief – and then twisted into a cruel sneer. “Not disturbing anything, am I? I’d hate to interrupt.”

 

“Helicon,” the Master said calmly, “I want the boys hogtied and thrown in the sea. Understood?”

 

“Righty-o,” Helicon said, giving an exaggerated salute.

 

‘Wait, wait! You can’t do this!” The Doctor cried. “They’re children. They’re a bit daft, yes, but surely daftness doesn’t warrant death?”

 

The Master sighed. “Are you going to make a big deal out of this?”

 

 _  
“Yes   
_   
!” The Doctor spluttered. “The slaughter of innocents is a big deal!”

 

“Fine,” the Master sighed. “Helicon, the boys will live.”

 

Helicon wrinkled his nose. “As you say, Emperor,” he said, his tone disappointed.

 

“But we’ll send a messenger to Rome and have the parents merely informed that their sons are to be killed,” the Master added. “Should shake them up a bit, don’t you think?”

 

“Very good, Gaius,” Helicon said, quickly withdrawing before the Master could again change his mind.

 

“There, Doctor,” the Master said. “Happy now?”

 

The Doctor shook his head, aghast. “You’re going to put them through all that torment, just because their sons made a bit of a racket at an unfortunate spot!”

 

The Master shrugged. “Maybe it will teach them to raise better sons. Ah! Ah! Hush, Doctor!” The Doctor had opened his mouth to speak, but the Master silenced him with a finger to his lips. “I don’t want to hear it. We’ll have to agree to disagree on this one, yes? Don’t worry your pretty little head over it. You need your rest. We start on a long journey tomorrow.”

 

The Doctor was determined to sulk, but he couldn’t help but ask. “Are we setting sail for Britannia?”

 

“Britannia? Oh no, we’ve called that off. Well, I have. My advisors aren’t too pleased, but I expect they’ll live.”

 

“But you were so excited for it,” the Doctor said, confused.

 

The Master gave him a smile and pressed his body closer. “Why would I want to go to Britannia? I have all I need right here. I’ve finally found what I was looking for,” he said, resting his head against the Doctor’s chest. “I can hear your hearts beating. Oh, Doctor! Imagine the things we have ahead of us!” 


	11. Si Vis Amari Ama

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Doctor is in Rome, the emperor has a familiar face, and something is very, very wrong. In this episode! Ahem,Virgil: _Henceforward Dido cared no more for her appearance or her good name, and ceased to take any thought for secrecy in her love. She called it a marriage; she used this word to screen her sin._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A massive thanks to the eternally lovely [](http://evilawyer.livejournal.com/profile)[**evilawyer**](http://evilawyer.livejournal.com/) for spontaneously beta-ing earlier chapters. She is awesome!

Rumour, swiftest of all pests, had descended upon Rome. It was scaling the marble fortresses, streaking naked through the Forum, doggy-padding up the Tiber. It was snuggling up to the very bosom of Rome and whispering terrible sweet nothings into the city’s collective ear. It whispered of trysts, of blushes and fumbles. The city was listening attentively, a captive but willing audience.

The Doctor couldn’t be certain of this, of course. Anthropomorphism was all well and good, but there probably wasn’t a creature that existed solely to spread slander (after all, what kind of ecological niche was that to inhabit?). That said, it did seem exceedingly likely that the entire Roman Empire was having a good gossip over the latest imperial exploits. The Doctor, perched above the civilised masses as he was, could see their Roman hands move to their Roman mouths, lest the juicy tidbits escape into official Roman ears. _Look, there he goes!_ They were saying. _The skinny one with the hair. He’s the Emperor’s latest, or so I hear. At it like rabbits, they are. He came to Rome with the noblest of intentions, but now he spends his days on his back, working for nothing more than the joy of giving._

 _Gosh, really?_

 _Oh yes, and I hear he looks good in a suit.  
_  
The Master’s hand on his shoulder distracted the Doctor from this cheery dialogue. He nearly jumped off the sedan carrying them both, flinching away from the contact like some scared animal. The Master sighed, rolling his eyes and tutting.

“Don’t go all shrinking violet on me," he said, voice low. “Come on, Doctor. I have an important question for you.’

“Hmm?”

The Master grinned wickedly. “If you were Athena, venerated Goddess of wisdom, would you wear your owl on _this_ shoulder?” He said, squeezing the skin under his hand for emphasis. “Or _this_ shoulder?” He moved his arm so it was draped across the Doctor’s back, pulling the two Time Lords close together. The Doctor felt like he should be in the back row of some godforsaken American movie theatre, a pimply teenager on his first date.

“ _Gaius_!” He hissed desperately. “There are people watching!” This was no exaggeration. The Doctor could deal with an onlooker or two – well, he’d had to, the Master was spontaneous like that – but the entire population of Rome was something else entirely. The Doctor had standards. He had self-respect. Ha.

“Let them watch,” the Master said. “I could understand your … shyness, shall we say, but you seem to forget that I’m the Emperor of Rome, and you’re my chosen companion. They’re your subjects as much as mine.”

“Really?” The Doctor asked, raising an eyebrow. It wasn’t like the Master to share his toys.

“Well, in a theoretical sense,” the Master amended. “You wouldn’t want an empire anyway, would you?”

“I might like a small one” the Doctor mused. “I once ran a kibbutz, you know. We were living a pastoral existence just outside of Essex. It was great, till we all got poisoning from a bad batch of lentil burgers.”

“That’s nice,” the Master said. He’d gotten in the habit of tuning the Doctor out when he started talking about Britannia. Such foreign foolishness, he liked to say, was in the past. The Doctor’s future lay in Rome. “Go on, Doctor,” he urged. “Give your would-be subjects a smile.”

The Doctor tried, he really did. The resulting facial contortion might have been said to resemble a smile, at least in the sense that he was showing teeth. He gurned hopefully at the crowds surrounding them. A small child caught sight of him and promptly burst into tears. Well, if that was what he got for trying…

The two were being carried aloft through the paved streets of Rome. They sat on an opulent sedan, not unlike the one the Doctor had first glimpsed this Roman Master on. Golly, that was a long time ago _(too long, far too long_ ), but it would seem that the Romans’ love for their Emperor had not diminished since then. Far from it – they were cheering, waving flags, attempting to start up patriotic sing-a-longs. Their eyes shone with genuine love for the man they knew as Caligula, a fevered and unquestioning worship. They grasped at his hands and trailing toga as he passed, some practically swooning when graced with an imperial smile. The Master had only been in France for a few months, and it seemed a miracle that Rome had managed to go on without him. The Doctor, much as he hated to admit it, could relate.

“I’m rubbish at this trophy wife business,” he said, slumping back against the Master. “I’m making your subjects jealous. They’re going to shoot me down with a poison dart and then you’ll regret your public displays of affection.”

“You’re my wife? Does that mean I get to carry you over the threshold when we get home?”

“Oh, please no.” The Doctor wrinkled his nose in distaste. “You’ll put your back out.”

“It’s a charming thought, though,” the Master mused. “I mean, here you are, accompanying me on official business, and last night…. _Well_. You certainly were uxorious.”

“Hmm.” Golly, the sedan’s floor certainly was fascinating. “Caesonia might well have something to say about her role being usurped, don’t you think?”

“Think of her? I’d rather not. You in a wedding gown, however…”

The Doctor groaned. “I’m just not going to say anything ever again. Never ever ever. I can’t say a single thing without you turning into pornography.”

“It’s hardly my fault, the things your mouth does…”

“Oh, shut up.” His face was flaming like Dido’s funeral pyre.

“Shan’t!” The Master said, grinning. “I rather like this idea. The Doctor, my bridal Briton. And it adds a whole new element to my upcoming surprise.”

“Your upcoming surprise is no longer very surprising, is it?” The Doctor snorted. “What is it then?” He kept his tone light, hoping not to belie the twisting in his stomach. The Master and surprises - that was a bad combination. It was really bad. It was like baking soda and vinegar mixed together and frothing all over the place, except that dead people were usually involved.

“It would ruin all the fun if I told you now, wouldn’t it? Oh, how you’ll laugh. Actually,” he said, frowning. “You probably won’t. You’ll probably get all mopey and self-righteous again.”

The Doctor’s hearts sank. “Oh god. What have you got planned?”

“Nothing really,” the Master said petulantly. “Well, any normal person would find it side-splitting, but you’ll probably impose your British morality on it and get all sulky on me.”

“You’re a Roman! You don’t get to lecture me on cultural imperialism! And I’m warning you, if anyone gets so much as a paper cut today…” The Doctor hoped he sounded threatening.

“What’s paper?” The Master asked, barely interested. “Oh, but enough talk. I say we start with the festivities!” He raised his free hand in a rehearsed signal, despite the Doctor’s best efforts to pull it down again. There was a loud clatter from behind them, and the Doctor turned to see great big armour clad soldiers – the Roman Empire’s burliest, quite possibly – clamber up the side of a large container being pulled along behind them. The Doctor had dimly wondered what they’d been dragging along with them since France, but had never bothered to find out. Funny, he’d found himself feeling more and more like that lately. Puzzles seemed less puzzling, the furniture looked less lickable. It was bad, really, but his field of interests had lately become rather small and Master-shaped. Hmm. He should take up the crossword, something like that.

A cover was pulled back from the container to reveal… Popcorn? Teeth? No, it was thousands upon thousands of tiny white shells, bleached white and glinting feebly in the afternoon sun. Ah, the highly lucrative ‘British currency’ that he and so many Romans had spent hours collecting from the beaches of France. Were they going to open a Bureau de Change?

“The spoils of war,” the Master said, following the Doctor’s gaze. “The fruits of our Gallic toil.”

“You’ve bought them back shells from the beach,” the Doctor said, confused. “That’s not evil at all. It’s not very you either, come to think of it, but it’s nice to know that I can still be surprised at this age. We should’ve got some snapshots with donkeys and a big stick of taffy… Wait, what are they doing?”

The soldiers had climbed up into the container and were scooping up handfuls of shells. They flung their treasure into the air, like doves of peace being released to sky. What comes up nearly always comes down, and the Doctor watched with horror as the shells rained upon the hapless spectators. The crowd dispersed noisily, running for cover, but the flimsier awnings and parasols were easily ripped by the pointy little mollusks. The cheers of five minutes ago had turned to screams. It was all too familiar.

“No, no, _no_!” The Doctor cried, looking around him in panic. “You can’t do this!”

“All evidence would suggest otherwise,” the Master said calmly.

“I – oh, shut up. Get them to stop!” The Doctor turned to the men in the container behind them and began shouting. “Stop! Stop! You’re going to have someone’s eye out!” The men studiously ignored him. “What? You’re too busy blinding the entire population of Rome to listen to a mad foreigner? You can’t hear me over the sounds of small children crying?”

“Oh, do be quiet Doctor. You’re embarrassing yourself.” The Master appeared to be brushing lint off his toga.

“Oh no, oh no! If they choose death by hyperbole, then so be it.” He paused for breath, then bellowed at the top of his lungs. “You’re all absolute monsters, and your mothers are very, very ashamed!”

“ _Doctor_.” His face was suddenly twisted away from the burly brutes and forced into full-on eye contact with the Master. He was smiling, the bastard. He found this funny? Oh, he’d get told! The Doctor opened his mouth to speak, only to silenced by a single finger against his lips.

“They’ve been told to ignore you,” the Master said, obviously amused. “I mean, really? Did you honestly think that I wouldn’t foresee your little moralistic outbreak and make the proper arrangements?”

“Okay then,” the Doctor said against the Master’s finger. “I’ll tell you: this is an unbelievably bad thing that you’re doing, and it needs to stop right now. These people were so happy before. They were overjoyed to see you, and now they’ll be lucky to return home with both eyes in their head!”

“Ooh,” the Master looked thoughtful. “That’s an idea... A modern day Cyclops, all of my own making. Whole troupes of them! We should go around when this is done, round them up and display them to the public for a small fee. Could really bring the money in, don’t you think?”

The Doctor gaped at him, openmouthed like a fish. “You… you…”

“I seem to have offended your delicate British sensibilities. This is how we do things in Rome. We see opportunities and we take them.”  
“They’re _people_ , not opportunities!”

“Mere semantics,” the Master shrugged. “And I’m so sad, Doctor. I’m almost in tears here. You haven’t even inquired into the significance of my little display, and I put all this thought into it...”

“Oh, you need a reason now? Sorry, I was under the impression that you were a mere garden-variety nutter. My sincerest apologies,” the Doctor said, voice dripping with sarcasm. “Please enlighten me. What is the symbolic value of lobbing seashells at your loyal citizens?”

“I like to think of the homecoming parade as a big party,” the Master said, blithely ignoring the Doctor’s venom. “And what do you have at a party?”

“Razor-filled piñatas? Poison-laced punch?”

“Oh, you think you’re so witty. No, Doctor. You have _confetti!_ ”

“Wha -? Confetti doesn’t even exist yet, you walking anachronism! And furthermore, it’s all sharp and pointy-edged and – _this isn’t funny_!”

The Master was giggling. “Oh, you’re so cute when you’re angry. I should do stuff like this more often.” The Doctor was about to protest, he really was, but then the Master moved forward and started bloody kissing him, and why did their arguments always end like this? Kissing as a pre-emptive strike, that’s what it was, the Doctor thought as the Master’s mouth moved against his and the screams of a thousand besieged Romans echoed in his ears.

The Master was the first to break away, moving back and wiping his mouth in a gesture that made the Doctor want to strangle him. “So endearing,” he reiterated. “Just you wait till I get you home.”

The Doctor did his best to ignore the small shudder that passed through him at the Master’s words. “If you think that a bit of snogging is going to make everything okay…”

“Yes, yes, your moral scruples, I completely understand. But you’re missing the big picture here. Some people might have gotten hurt, I’ll grant you that, but what are they to us? Little more than cattle, or incubators for the next generation of Roman soldiers. They fairly repulse me,” he scowled. “That single heart beating away sluggishly, _yech_. I don’t think they even qualify as being fully alive. But then there’s you, Doctor. A tandem heartbeat, and with it a mind unlike that of any man I have ever met. You’re worth celebrating. So I surprise you with a bit of appropriately matrimonial confetti, and all you can do is whine about the unwashed masses and their petty flesh wounds?”

“Confetti doesn’t exist yet!” The Doctor could only repeat what he knew to be true when faced with convoluted logic. He shook his head. “You’re broken. You’re wrong. This isn’t _appropriately matrimonial_. It’s you being a remarkably consistent monster.”

The Master bristled. “It’s me being innovative and expressive, I think you’ll find.”

“It’s barbaric.”

“It’s _pretty_.”

The Doctor threw up his hands in defeat. “It’s like arguing with a brick wall, except worse. Brick walls generally don’t run empires, and they’re only occasionally insane!”

“You can’t debate for toffee, you know that?” The Master said fondly. “I come up with an intelligent and well-reasoned statement, and all you can do is splutter a bit and call me a nutter.” He reached out and pulled the Doctor close again. “It’d be annoying, if you weren’t so gosh-darn cute.”

“Toffee doesn’t exist yet either,” the Doctor said weakly, his voice muffled by folds of toga.

The Master pulled a face. “Your mother doesn’t exist yet.”

“Well, actually…”

“Hush! Now is not the time. Look, there ahead! Home sweet home.” Indeed, the imperial palace was now visible on the hills above them. It shone a shiny, shiny white (they must’ve just cleaned it) against the autumnal browns of the Palatine hill like a seashell embedded in dirt. “Just look at it,” the Master whispered in his ears. “It’s massive, you know. Literally hundreds of rooms, and I’m going to have you in _every single one.”_

The Doctor swallowed heavily. “Um. Won’t you be busy running an empire?”

The Master laughed and shook his head. “People always forgive the enthusiasm of newlyweds, don’t they?” He brought his face close for another kiss, and well, the Doctor couldn’t help but agree with him. They made a rather odd couple, he supposed – the imperial anachronism and his would-be blushing bride being carried through the now deserted streets of Rome.

*

Criminally insane Time Lords are a bit like broken toasters – it’s not as easy to ‘fix’ them as one might think. Still, the Doctor felt that it was his moral imperative (if not duty) to have a go at putting the Master to rights. His metaphorical toaster was remarkably ungrateful, all things considered.

“What are you doing?” He huffed one morning. “I’m not sure that I like being flicked through like this.”

“I’m just rummaging,” the Doctor said, distracted by the labyrinthine corridors of the mind open beneath him. “And a right mess it is, too. I’m going to need a man in – ah! I’m going to see any trite innuendo before you say it, remember? That said, I could’ve seen that one coming from a mile off. And I saw that one, too.”

“This is all an excuse to get me under you, isn’t it?”

“Saw it thirty seconds ago, love, and it wasn’t funny then. You know, I used to think that you had a dirty mind, but now I can _see_ it. If your mind was a house, it’d belong to one of those people with a hoarding compulsion and sixty-three cats.” The Doctor supposed that the Master had a point – they didn’t have to do this mind-rummaging business positioned quite as they were, strictly speaking. He vaguely recollected reading somewhere that straddling was scientifically proven to strengthen the physic connection, and anyway, that hands-on-foreheads-in-full-ceremonial-garb shtick always made him feel like such a twit.

“It’s important that I do this,” he continued. “I have to find out how you know what confetti and toffee are, because it’s 39CE, and you really shouldn’t. Or rather, you should, but you should also remember everything else.”

“Everything else?”

“Teletubbies? Double Decker buses? A penchant for really daft facial hair?” The Doctor shook his head sadly at the Master’s perfected incomprehension face. “No, nothing. There’s something in here, something blocking it, and if I can just find it…”

“What, Doctor? What will you do?” The Master was arching against him, and helpfully showing the Doctor what he hoped to achieve by this, and goodness, had he no sense of propriety?

“I’ll put you to rights, won’t I?” The Doctor said, doing his best to ignore him. It was quite an achievement, really – his voice only shook slightly. “And I’ll give those drums a bash while I’m at it, so to speak.”

“And then?” The Master hadn’t given up on this arching business of his. It was most improper.

“I don’t know,” the Doctor said, and honestly meant it. “You’ll be transformed into something pure and lovely, and we’ll ride yaks into the sunset.”

“What’s a yak? Where do they come from?”

“The same place as confetti, to you.”

“Oh, I do wish you’d stop going on about that. I’m a clever sort. I probably picked it up somewhere, and if not, then it’s wholly my own creation. You don’t have the monopoly on knowing when things were invented, you know.”

The Doctor raised an eyebrow. “I think you’ll find I do.”

“And anyway,” the Master continued, ignoring him, “I think I’m learning to live with the drums. I mean, they’re still annoying, and they do make me a bit -”

“Genocidal? Or cranky, at the very least. You tried to set Caesonia’s hair on fire at breakfast yesterday.”

The Master shrugged. “I’ve never been one for mornings.”

“All the same, you wouldn’t have done that two years ago, and that’s what worries me. Ah! Now this is interesting!” The Doctor had stumbled, quite by chance, onto what looked very much like a locked door. He could hear muffled sounds coming from the other side – lots of zapping and screaming, and that was that a _bassoon_? Either way, he’d find out soon enough. The Doctor was willing to bet his right heart that this was where the Master – the real Master, his Master, was hiding.

“You’d hate it, if you knew,” he muttered. “It’s terribly undignified. The debris of a lifetime of infamy, shoved into a cupboard and forgotten like an unwanted Christmas present. Who did this to you, eh?”

“You’re gibbering again,” the Master said, sounding bored.

“It’ll all make sense in the fullness of time, I promise.” Hmm. This door was proving a tricky customer to open, which wasn’t at all surprising. As if the Master could be contained by shoddy mental workmanship! Well, no matter. The Doctor would get in there eventually. He’d dealt with this sort of thing before, and he knew what to do. He’d speak to it nicely, take it out to dinner and get it drunk, maybe batter it down like a ram if he had to. It’d take a lot of time and concentration, but he’d manage it eventually.

The Doctor set to his task with a somewhat anorak-ish amount of enthusiasm. It’d be like undoing a really big knot, getting to the bottom of this. He felt like he’d been in Rome forever, still as a marble sculpture, with his blood slowly turning into wine and olive oil. It seemed unthinkable that it could soon all be over, and he’d be free to go into internet cafés and bloody _blog_ to his heart’s content, should he wish. And if he just happened to pick up a charming companion in the form of a newly rebooted and drum-free Master, well, he could live with that. Now, he had to focus on the task at hand, or that particular reality would never eventuate. Gently, gently…

He was so engrossed in his labour that he failed to notice how the drums from behind the door were growing steadily louder, till they were all around him in a surround sound stereo set up. It completely bypassed him that the indistinct murmuring that hummed in his ears like angry bees was taking on the substance of language. _Mineminemine_ , the monologue went. _Wantwanttakehave_ – _Oh Doctor, I’ve got you now._

“Wha-?” The Doctor opened his eyes in confusion, only to shut them again half a second later as a wave of pure sensation washed over him. Actually, to call it a tsunami may have been more accurate – he felt as if he were being carried away by it, drowning in a sea of firing synapses and tingling nerve endings. His only option was to grip onto the body below him, as if for dear life. And oh, what a body it was! The Master was luxuriating in his physicality, all writhing limbs and bruising fingers. It was wonderfully filthy, and so very corporeal. The Doctor didn’t stand a chance against it.

Still, it was terribly ill-timed. “Please,” he gasped out. “I was actually in the middle of something rather important, and I might – ah! - not be able to start again where I left off.”

The Master’s laughter reverberated in his head. _Nuh-uh. This, Doctor, is the important business. You spend too much time meddling about in the mind. The real pleasures lie firmly in the flesh. Now shut up._ He lifted his hips to meet the Doctor’s, and his mind to do the same, and _oh_. It was too much, too powerful. The Doctor’s body couldn’t take such pleasure. He’d surely explode, surely die in recompense for having experienced such a thing.

 _Yes, Doctor. Yes. That’s how it should end. I can see it. The two of us, obliterated by bliss. Flying apart into stardust and atoms as we call each other’s names_. The two were locked together now and moving frantically, long having since given up the pretence of this being anything other than a frenzied coupling. It was messy and glorious, and it was going to be over far too soon, but they could just get up and do it again whenever they felt like it. They had, after all, the entirety of space and time at their disposal. There would be other rooms where the Master’s hands would fist in the Doctor’s hair as they were doing now. There would be other centuries in which their hips would grind against together, the friction and rhythm blindingly good. Their brutal kisses would span across millennia, rewriting history in their image. There was so much still to do, and so much time left to do it in, and yet there would never be enough.

Much as he would have liked it to go on forever – perennial, an evergreen fuck for all the seasons – biology eventually won out. The Doctor came with a shout, burying his face into the Master’s neck and shaking like a leaf. His counterpart - the Master, Koschei, the Roman sodding Emperor – was only seconds behind him, mewling and convulsing till his very last. And there they were. Call and response. Cause and effect. The Doctor and the Master.

They lay still for a while, collecting their breath and sharing the occasional aftershocks through the flickering psychic link. They haven’t even made it out of their tunics, the Doctor noted with surprised disdain. Honestly, the pair of them were no better than teenagers. Ah well, it was nothing that urine and dead hedgehogs couldn’t take care of. He eventually rolled off, stretching across the bed like an overgrown tomcat. He could see Rome in its entirety from out of the large window. He took in the sheer size of it, the monolithic and grand temples, the bustling markets, the classical cosmopolitanism. It really wasn’t so bad here.

“Atoms haven’t been discovered yet, you know,” he said, at length. That was bad, he supposed, but it was so hard to worry about anything right now, with the Master’s double heartbeat mere inches away and the setting sun warm on his face. The Master – bastion of maturity that he was – responded by hitting him in the face with a pillow. Things ended as you might expect them to. Such predictability should have been depressing, but the Doctor managed to live with it somehow.

And later, when the trivial necessities of running an empire called the Master away, the Doctor missed him. Sure, he had his faults. He’d done some bad things – okay, some probably qualified as downright abhorrent, but who was perfect? People in glass houses and all that. Let them judge, those who walked around without the constant backing of a marching band in their ears. It’s easy to take the moral high ground when your ear drums aren’t under constant percussive assault. The Doctor was getting quite angry at his would-be opponents, this invisible army of concerned naysayers.

He shook his head. He had to get out, had to think of other things. It didn’t do to just sit around like this, achieving little more than the mental equivalent of carving initials and love hearts into trees. He was in Rome for a wholly different reason, after all. He had detective work to do! A mystery to solve. He’d just put on his deerstalker cap and he’d be out the door in a jiffy. He would, he really would… Oh, to hell with it. He’d had a tiring day, after all. The Doctor reached under the mattress, groping blindly, and emerged with his trusty paperback in hand. He was making real progress with this. He could count three visible cracks in the spine.

 _ANTE DIEM V KALENDIS APRILES_

 _The thought of boiled goatfish for dinner yet again doesn’t really appeal. Beggars can’t be choosers, I know, but would anyone really notice if I took one of the smaller ships and buggered of to Sarpedon for a sausage roll? Short answer, yes. Bleurgh. It’s like a vomitorium, but without all the fun bits beforehand.  
And then I’ve got to spend half the night at another blasted community meeting, ‘debating’ the issues of the day, which is just a polite way of saying ‘listening to Julius say things and nodding politely’. And for all the joking talk of constant orgies, we’ve only had one and it was complete rubbish.  
I am in such a bad mood. I really don’t know what’s come over me. I’m out here living my life-long dream, and yet I’m not happy. It’s bizarre. But all the things that cheered me up back home – old photos, chocolate covered coffee beans, music – are completely out. Even Gregorian chants are too modern. GARR!  
Numa Fabricus X_

There was a bear with a sore head. Maybe that was why Dardanus had petered out so quickly – they’d all grumped themselves to death. The Doctor could relate to the chocolate cravings though. Apple cakes had their charm, but only up to a point. Hmm. He again reached under his bed, this time for the rucksack full of essential supplies he’d packed some time ago – sonic screwdriver, vacuum sealed banana, that sort of thing. He vaguely remembered chucking in some chocolate buttons, and desperately hoped that his younger self hadn’t been greedy enough to devour them selfishly… And it looked like he had. Bastard.

There were lots of interesting things in here, mind. Smiling photographs from a photo booth on Mercury – they were taken in his last regeneration, and ooh, his ears looked sun burnt. Ouch. Rose hadn’t fared a lot better, by the looks of things. The Doctor wondered how she was doing, and what she’d make of this situation. He’d barely thought of her in weeks, he realised. He hadn’t thought of anyone, really. Hmm. That wasn’t good at all. He’d have to make an effort again. He’d recharge Martha’s cellphone and give her a ring. He’d tell her what he’d been up to, though he’d have to omit … well, everything. He’d tell her what he’d had for dinner or something. Maybe it wouldn’t be such a bad thing for her to think that he’d become that boring.

He rummaged deeper in his bag. He hadn’t cleared this thing out in ages. Still, it was good to know that, if in a pickle, he had a ticket enabling him to catch a 1974 bus to Swindon. He could also make a blancmange, by the looks of things. And… a ha! He pulled out his physic paper – it was in a side pocket, partially obscured by what may have been a Hawaiian birth certificate. He’d never gone so long with checking it, and was a tad excited to find out if he had more than one message. Did they both squeeze onto the same page, or did he have a sort of inbox type thing? The Doctor didn’t know, and he sometimes felt like he’d never be popular enough to find out.

His hearts sank as he opened it to find a single message. Maybe if he left it unchecked for a millenium he’d find out. His hearts sank even further as he read was written.  
 _  
Your actions do great damage to Gaius Germanicus. Hurry, Doctor, for time is running out!_

Oh dear. Well, that spelled things out in no uncertain terms. The Doctor, through no active effort on his part, was apparently contributing to Gaius Germanicus’ imminent demise. He had to go do something about it. He was obliged to, wasn’t he? He still didn’t have a clue as to where or who Gaius Germanicus was, but he couldn’t let that stop him. He’d walk around Italy calling his name if he had to. He hoped that the life threatening condition was something simple, like starving to death. He’d just make him a blancmange!

He was busy shoveling things into his bag – would he really need a recorder? Yes, of course he would! – When the Master walked in. “Going somewhere?” He asked, arms crossed and eyebrows raised.

“Yep,” the Doctor said, not meeting his gaze. “I’m sorry, and I’d love to stay, but I’ve got this thing that I simply have to do. I’ve wasted too much time here as it is. Someone might die, and it’s all my fault…”

“You think you’ve wasted your time here?” The Master’s voice came right in his ear, and the Doctor just about jumped. He turned to see the Master right at his side, not looking too pleased.

“Oh no, not like that. It’s just a question of priority…” He trailed off. His words sounded embarrassingly feeble. “I’m sorry,” he said abruptly, not entirely sure of who he was apologising to.

The Master gave a calculated shrug. “You’re a free man, Doctor. I can’t stop you leaving. It’s just-” he broke off to give a dramatic sigh, “I’m making an important announcement to the senate in half an hour. It’s going to be the defining moment of my reign, and it’d mean the world to me if you were by my side. But if you’ve got things to do, I quite understand.”

The Doctor bit his lip. He really should go after Gaius Germanicus, before whatever unnamed ailment carried him away. Although, he’d managed to hang on for the last two years, hadn’t he? And ‘time is running out’ is really a very vague statement. That could mean almost anything. He might be late for public transport, or left with a lot of yogurt with one day before it expired. You know, he’d probably live for another day or two.

“Oh, it can wait,” the Doctor said. The Master gave him a smile, and god, those eyes. They warmed the Doctor up inside, like he was getting into a hot bath. The Master was happy. He was happy. Everything was going to be okay.

“Excellent. Now, come along.” The Master took his hand and led him out of the room. The Doctor felt a small twinge of guilt (he probably should follow up on those messages) but managed to suppress it with surprising ease. Gaius Germanicus could wait. The Master needed him.


	12. Alis Grave Nil XII -  Imitatio Dei

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Doctor is in Rome, the emperor has a familiar face, and something is very, very wrong. In this episode! Caligula thinks he's a god, the Senate disagrees, and the Doctor hides in a cupboard.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please see [this page](http://ombredelarue.livejournal.com/9127.html) for an explanation/apology for my eternal tardiness. It has gifs! This chapter has quite a few (plot-relevant) pop culture references, which I know irks some people, so yeah, be warned.

“Hands up if you think that I’m a god!”

The Doctor supposed that if they could have feasibly done so without being crucified, the members of the Roman senate would have all put their hands on the ground and shouted, “Nuh uh! Nuh uh! Not me!”That would be silly, though. Silly and childish, and terribly far beneath the wisest men in Rome. No, they conveyed their stern disapproval through means much more masculine and traditional. There was beard stroking, thick eyebrows retreating into hairlines themselves retreating, a bit of arm crossing here and there. No one was actually saying it though, the thing they were all thinking. The Doctor half wished that someone would, just for a laugh. _Actually, I think that you’ve gone completely off the deep end, your holy batshittedness, sir_. Even Incitatus looked less than impressed.

The Master sighed heavily. “You don’t seem to understand the point of this exercise. I’m a god, you see. Furthermore, I’m your emperor, and so you have to obey me. Thus, when I say to you, ‘believe me, gentlemen, when I tell you that I am a god,’ and then ask for proof with a show of hands, _you put your fucking hands up_. Got it? Okay, let’s try again. Put your hands up if... Oh, you know the drill.”

Nothing. Arms stayed glued across chests. It was like a sea of hostile elbow pointing.

“Oh Doctor! They _don’t_ get it!” The Master crossed the room and flung himself in front of the Doctor’s chair. He buried his face in the voluminous folds of the Doctor’s toga and heaved a huge, theatrical sob. “Of course, I didn’t expect them to,” he said, voice muffled. “They’re as stupid as a pack of inbred mules, the lot of them, but don’t they know of the pressure that now burdens my divine shoulders? What if I get up to Mount Olympus and the other gods don’t like me? What if they’re jealous of my wit, good looks and foreign boyfriend?” His fingers gripped at the toga at a point just a bit too high for the Doctor’s liking. He’d rather not add the entire Roman Senate to the list of witnesses to their public displays of affection. The scroll was a foot long as it was.

“I suppose it’s proof they want, isn’t it?” The Master said, standing up. “Pass me that abacus, would you?”He turned to the assembled men and began moving the beads. “So, I was pondering the big questions, doing some sums, you know, and I found that if I carried the one here... divide by zero, that’s right, times everything by three... I get...yep! There we go, It says that I’m a god! Fantastic! Completely scientific and everything!” He threw the abacus onto the floor behind him, where it promptly shattered into a thousand little clay pieces.

“Any questions?”The Master asked. “Surely you have no doubts about my divinity now?”

A man at the front – older, and somewhat beardy – had been getting steadily redder throughout the Master’s performance, and now seemed to reach boiling point. “This is madness!” He spluttered. “A living man, emperor or no, cannot claim to be immortal! Why, it goes against everything Roman! It’s barbarian, it’s wrong, it’s -”

“Oh, do stop talking, Cassius,” the Master said, wincing. “I like you – or rather, I want to like you, but I can’t, as you’re such an officious prick . Still, you’ve killed a lot of people for Rome, and I like that.”

“I won’t be silenced!” Cassius said, drawing himself up to his full height. “I must take a stand against your lunacy!”

“You will shut up, because I’ll have you killed if you don’t. That might be hilariously ironic, but alas, somewhat unfortunate, as I need you to keep those pesky Judeans in check. Ooh, I must get them worshipping me too. Yeah, a giant golden statue of me in the middle of Jerusalem, that’ll show Leonard Cohen who’s boss. I’ll need a boatload of said gold, and the best sculptors in the Empire brought in. Think you can manage to finance that?”

There was a great deal of disgruntled mumbling. “Certainly not,” huffed the ever-beardy Cassius. “Who is this Leonard Cohen, anyway? I’ve never heard of him.” There was another wave of mumbling, this time in agreement.

“Oh, good grief,” the Master said, throwing his head back and rolling his eyes in an eye-roll so epic in scope that it could have been better described as an eye-orbit. “Do you not read the papers? Leonard Cohen! The King of Judea! No, nothing?” He shook his head at the senator’s blank faces. “Would you lot recognise a current affair if it was disrobing in front of you? See, I don’t think you would. Even my Doctor knows this, and he’s from a nation of sheep-shaggers – no offence, Doctor.”

“None taken,” the Doctor said. “Although I don’t think you should be talking about newspapers at this point, strictly speaking.”

“Actually, why am I apologising?” The Master was pacing across the marble floors, the heels of his sandals slapping noisily as he did so. “My Doctor is a man of learning, it is true, but he’s from a land where they believe that cabbage can cure impotence – that’s right, isn’t it?”  
“Radishes, actually, and even then only on Tuesdays.”

“My point exactly. My Doctor is the cleverest man I’ve ever met, and the prettiest, and the bendiest, and the – well, anyway. Point is, he’s amazing, but he’s still a barbarian by birth. None of you – supposedly the cream of this city’s crop – can match him in wit or intelligence. You disgust me, all of you, talking about Roman tradition as if you’re worthy of upholding it. Ooh, there’ll be some changes around here, starting with the worship of me as your god.”

The Doctor could believe it. He looked around him – the vaulted ceiling, the marble, all those bloody arches everywhere ( _the architects must be mad with boredom_ ) – within millennia they’d be little more than tombstones, and beyond that, only memories. When people spoke of Rome – and they did forever, if the bouncy castle Colosseum at Dardanus was anything to go by – they didn’t speak of the intellectually stagnating mass of blinking men before him. No, they spoke of ideas, of both wit and spark, of both flux and fixation. The Master stood in the centre of this swirling vortex of virtues, shining and eternal and _good_. Oh yes, the Doctor could believe in him. It almost angered him that the Senators wouldn’t.

“Now,” the Master was saying. “I know that you think that I’m doing this for purposes that are less than noble, and the thought of it just keeps me up at night. Doesn’t it, Doctor?”

“Oh yes. He’s like a baby with it – crying, being sick...”

“Exactly. Don’t go thinking, oh noble Senators, that I take the burden of my divinity lightly. I’m hardly doing this so that I can google myself.”  
“Google yourself?” Came a rumbling voice from somewhere near the back. “Is that foreign like?”

“Um, actually, if I may...” The Doctor got to his feet and addressed the senators. “Yes, yes it is. It’s British, a verb, you know – I google, you google, he, she, it googles. It means to... um... go around asking everyone what they think of you. Terribly undignified behaviour and far beneath our dear emperor, but not at all unusual at this time of year, with the rain... and the frogs.” Oh dear. The Doctor’s lying on the spot skills were definitely getting rusty. Hmm. Must be the rain!

Cassius, redder than ever, threw his hands up in despair. “You’re mad, you both are, and you won’t stop until you take the whole Empire down with you!”

“Yep,” the Master said, beaming. “And what _fun_ we’ll have doing it! This meeting is now adjourned – the Doctor and I are going to get our daily madness practice in, while you lot can all go and concentrate on growing your beards or something. Go on, you leeches, get out of my sight!”

He turned to the Doctor and smiled, as the senators made a mad rush for the door. “I think that went quite well, don’t you?”

*

“Your brain is like Swiss cheese, you know that? Oh no, stop moving.”

The Master was wrinkling his nose in distaste, and this, while adorable, was going to make the kohl that the Doctor was carefully applying go absolutely everywhere. “Stay still, won’t you? There, that’s it.”

“I don’t even know what Swiss cheese is,” the Master said, “but you certainly don’t make it sound very nice. I feel I should be offended.”  
“It’s perfectly nice,” the Doctor said. “It’s just that it’s from after your – well, this time. Half the stuff you go on about these days is. It’s like there’s holes appearing in this amnesia-door thingy you’ve got up in your brain, and all this random junk is getting through. You know all about crumpets and the Thirty-First Invasion of Crete, but you still think that the Medusa Cascade is a particularly snakey mudslide in Tuscany.”

“Is it not? And you’re sounding all mad-mannish again, and not in a good way. Should I really be letting you get so close to my eyes?”  
“Oh, I’m perfectly harmless. Qualified, too. I used to do Bowie’s make-up back in the day – or two thousand years in the future, take your pick.”

“Bowie what?” The Master looked at him blankly.

“Eyes to the ceiling! Unless you want to go out there looking like a panda. Surely Bowie must have gotten through one of those gaps? _There’s a star man, waiting in the sky_... He didn’t just write that on a whim, you know.”

“What’s a panda? And am I done yet?”

The Doctor sighed, and rocked back on his heels to admire his creation. The Master sat resplendent before him, perfumed and rouged to within an inch of his life. One of Caesonia’s frocks – a light, floaty affair – hung off him at odd angles, and he had on a blonde wig, purchased for an obscene amount of money from a Germanic slave trader. The effect was disarming. His stubble and Adam’s apple had never been more obvious, but it hardly mattered. Tonight, the Master was an illusion, all smoke and mirrors, a trick of the light or feverish imagination.

“I still don’t get why you’re doing this,” the Doctor said. “You’re going to spring in on Cassius dressed like this and do what? Bat your eyelashes at him until he keels over in fright?”

“No, no, it’s going to be quite brilliant,” the Master said, eyes wide under all manner of powders. “Thing is, he’s been in that room for what? Six, seven hours? All that time he’s been expecting his imminent execution, and he’s going to get the shock of his life when I come in like this. I’m not going to hurt him, just give him a fright. Ha! Oh, I do love to keep Rome on its toes.”

The Doctor stood up and helped the Master to his feet. “I know you hear this all the time, but you really are quite mad.”

The Master got up on tip-toes and planted a quick kiss on the Doctor’s lips, one that left the taste of cinnabar and several vegetable extracts. “Not mad,” he breathed. “Swiss-cheesy, which is perfectly nice. You said so yourself. Now, wish me luck, and be sure to be watching!”

With that he was gone, leaving only the scent of perfume and the sound of rustling fabric in his wake. The Doctor stood still, momentarily stunned by the strangeness of the situation. It was true that he’d been witness to some really weird things in his time - ever seen a giant cactus give birth to itself? The Doctor hadn’t either, but he’d heard it, and it wasn’t an experience that needed repeating. Thing is, on a personal level, there’s nothing quite like making up your former best enemy so that he can go and dance a perfectly innocent man to death. Still, whatever weirdness there was, it wasn’t enough to stop his feet from moving him to his designated vantage point. There was a small eye-shaped chink in the wall, with a cushion placed underneath – the Master was so thoughtful! The Doctor knelt in front of it, Pyramus at the gloryhole, and peered into the next room.

The Doctor didn't like Cassius - he was too shouty, too beardy (and the Doctor had put up with some irritating facial hair in his time), and too argumentative in the recent Senate meetings. Still, he felt a slight pang of pity when he saw just how securely the Senator was tied to his chair, and how deep the shadows under his eyes were. Six or seven hours is a long time to sit awaiting your impending death, and he'd probably been dreading something like this for far longer. The Doctor, strictly speaking, didn't know why the Master had decided that Cassius should be brought to the palace as prisoner tonight, but he supposed that there were reasons. They were probably good reasons, too, good and Roman and beyond his comprehension and - ooh, the music was starting!

From somewhere in the depths of the room, drums had started up a steady rhythm. There was a fiddle too, and a lyre – the Doctor wished that he could play the lyre, he should probably take up lessons. The melody was familiar and insistent, but frustratingly unnamable. The Doctor hated when that happened. The niggle it produced in the back of his mind was most distracting, and the Doctor couldn’t abide a distracting niggle.

All niggles were banished from his mind as the Master danced, literally _danced_ into his field of vision. He moved through the dim half-light like something from a dream, all swirling gossamer fabrics and glittering bangles. The Doctor was pretty sure that at least one of his hearts missed a beat, which was bad, because the roar of blood in his ears had never been louder, and he needed them to do their job. Bloody hell. The Doctor loved Rome, the Master and all the wonderful madness that blossomed from their union.

Unfortunately, the same could not be said for Cassius. His eyes had widened, narrowed in a curious frown, and then widened again in shock and probable fear. He was now visibly shaking in his chair. Some people had no taste.

The Master drew close to his captive. “Hello, Senator,” he said, voice soft and coquettish. “Do you like my frock? It’s a perfect fit, don’t you think?”

Cassius stared back at him, knuckles white on the rests of his chair. “What’s that? No opinion to offer? How unlike you, but then I suppose a gag will have that effect. So Cassius, would you like me to sing a song for you?” He grabbed Cassius’s chin and moved up and down in a brutal approximation of a nod. “Yes, Emperor, I’d like that very much.”

The Master smiled and backed off, smoothing down his dress. “Very well, Cassius, your wish is my command.” He gave a little shimmy, and called out to the unseen musicians behind him, “Ready lads? One-two-three-four!”

The song started up again, and the Doctor still couldn’t name it, but with the Master swaying in time with it like that, it hardly mattered. He was twirling slowly, rocking from side to side as if in a trance. The Doctor would have believed it too, if not for the quick smile that the Master shot in his general direction. He always did love an audience. Still smirking, the Master began to sing.

“ _Something in the way she moves_ ,” he sang, eyes bright, “ _attracts me like no other lover..._ ”

The Doctor’s groan was of course inaudible over the Master’s racket, but it was a groan as heartfelt as they came. He stared at the singing, dancing, cross-dressing anachronism in front of him and felt... well, he had a lot of feelings at the moment. Frustration, yes – acting as if Bowie were hopelessly obscure, and then breaking out George Harrison, _come on._ Bewilderment at this whole bizarre set-up, there was plenty of that too, and of course, the predictable and ever-present overwhelming lust. Mostly though, there was fascination. Watching the Master was like watching a star explode. You know you should look away, because if nothing else those things will blind you and burn your eyebrows off, and you’re watching the fiery collapse of something beautiful and you shouldn’t be gawking at it...but you just can’t look away. You just can’t.

In the next room, the Master showed no signs of stopping. _“You’re asking me, will our love grow?_ ” He was a whirl of fabric, limbs and Germania-blonde hair; singing and dancing and not quite getting those high notes. _“I don’t know, I don’t know!_ ”

The Doctor couldn’t look away.

*

The Doctor liked the cupboard he was sitting in very much. True, the position it forced him into wasn’t what you could call comfortable, but was it such a bad thing for his kneecaps to get better acquainted with his earlobes? Of course not. What the lovely cupboard lacked in space it made up for in cosiness, and it was nicely inconspicuous. Yes, it was perfect for hiding away in, and it didn’t go around giving the Doctor dirty looks, or calling him a whore under its breath. The Doctor had never known a cupboard to act in such a manner, but there was undoubtedly one doing just that somewhere in the universe. Generally though, such behaviour was reserved for the more humanoid species, such as ooh, Romans. They weren’t really a race, of course, but then the Doctor was no taxonomist...

He shook his head. He was in his cupboard to avoid such things, and by extension, thoughts of them. He settled his sonic screwdriver behind his left ear and switched it on to the lowest setting. It tickled, but made a perfectly acceptable reading light, which was about all the use it was getting these days.

 _ANTE DIEM IIII KALENDIS IVLIAS_

 _I have the most incredible craving for rice. Apparently rice isn’t Roman – not even risotto, which I tried to put forward as a potential meal when we were compiling our Sarpedon shopping list tonight. I mean, it’s Italian, right? Apparently this isn’t enough for Julius. You’d think I’d suggested deep fried Mars Bars, the reaction I got. Wouldn’t mind one of those either. Naargh. Don’t get me started._

 _It’s not just the shopping we’re bringing this week. We’ve got some labourers coming in too, for our Special Project. Grumblings about Sarpedian workmanship aside, if we allow ourselves to use workers instead of Authentic Roman Slaves, surely we can allow ourselves to eat risotto?_

 _Oh, me and my one track mind. I used to spend my days thinking of philosophers, rhetoric, all that. Now I think about tomatoes all frigging day. That, and kicking Julius in the teeth. Ironic, really._

 _(Although the puppy he’s brought in for his Special Project is adorable. I never thought I’d like a doggie with so many  
_  
A heavy knock on the cupboard’s side made the Doctor jump, dislodging his screwdriver and plunging him into near-darkness. He froze and considered his options. Being found hiding in a cupboard when you’re over the age of five (which the Doctor definitely was) is generally considered to be rather unusual behaviour, and that was the last thing that the good people of Rome needed to see him exhibiting more of. On the other hand, who goes around knocking on cupboards? Were people here really more polite to their linen than they were to him?  
The Doctor decided to stay quiet, doing his best to stuff his paperback into his fashionably deep pockets without an audible kerfuffle. He was fumbling with his bookmark when it fell open, and oh look, there it was.

 _MAKE HASTE, DOCTOR. GAIUS GERMANICUS IS DYING._

The text was even blinking. This was a first, and rather impressive, but surely a waste of psychic energy? The Doctor stuffed the psychic paper in as far deep in his pocket as it would go. He had to buy himself a new bookmark, one that didn’t make him feel all guilty every time he did a bit of light reading.

There was another succession of knocks against the cupboard, and then a deep sigh. “Doctor,” came the Master’s voice, “I know you’re in there. I can hear you fumbling.” There was a click and the door was pulled back to reveal a very tired looking Master. He stood for a moment and merely blinked at the Doctor. “Wow,” he eventually said. “You really are flexible.”

“Competitive gymnastics,” the Doctor said. “It’s the national sport of Britannia. How did you know I was in a cupboard? And this one, specifically?”

The Master grimaced. “Doctor, _everyone_ knows that you’re in this cupboard.”

“Ah.” How embarrassing.

“I leave Rome for a week and my people drive you into hiding.” The Master’s hands were balled into fists at his sides. “I should have them all slaughtered.”

“Oh no, don’t do that. It’s New Years Eve, and you don’t want to start things off with a bloodbath.”

“Don’t I? And do you ever plan on actually getting out of that cupboard?”

“Yes.”The Doctor unfurled himself and emerged, ducking down to give the Master a kiss. He’d missed that mouth. He’d missed a lot of things about the Master, actually – his hands, the way he chewed on his stylus when he was thinking, the slight resemblance he bore to a newborn kitten in the early mornings – but that mouth was definitely his favourite.

“Hmm, hello,” the Master murmured against his lips, “I’ve missed this. Naples is so dull without you.”

“Was it? You look like you’ve been in a war, or several.” It was true. The Master looked almost dead on his feet. His toga was covered with stains and there were rips in several places. “And you smell funny, like...” He leaned and sniffed him. “It’s like barbeque and... taxicabs? “ He frowned. “Taxicabs in Naples, in the year 40? That can’t be right.”

The Master shrugged, much as the Doctor expected him to.

“I do wish you’d let me come along on your trips,” the Doctor said, trying not to whine, “But I’d settle for a proper explanation of what you get up to. Come on, just a clue?”

The Master rubbed tiredly at his face. “It’s just politics, really.”

“Yeah, but politics could mean about a million things, couldn’t it? You could be up in Naples kissing babies and knocking on doors, or you could be planning the fourth Punic war for all I know. And in any case -”

“Just drop it, will you?” The Master said, sounding very tired, “Please? It’s been a long day, and my head is about five minutes away from exploding.”

“The drums?” The Doctor moved closer, ignoring the Master’s flinch away from him. “I can handle it, let me – ow!” His fingertips had barely grazed the Master’s forehead when he was physically thrown backwards by the sheer force of the mental percussion. His back hit the cupboard hard, but the pain hardly registered over the ringing in his ears. How on earth was the Master’s brain not exploding?

“Told you so,” the Master said, helping him up.

“Never been that good with body language,” the Doctor muttered, a little woozy. “Your head is he incredible. I have infinite respect for your skull, I really do. Civilisations would collapse under that noise. Ow...” He shook his head, vowing to never complain its relative silence again. “I suppose you’ll be needing an early night then, won’t you? To, um, recover?”

The Master laughed, his eyes full of heat. “Such an opportunist, Doctor. Alas, there’s a party on in the ballroom, and I’m afraid we have to go and _mingle_.” He shuddered with distaste at the word.

“Do we have to?” The Doctor groaned. “You hate everyone. I hardly see the point-”

“It’s exactly the point,” the Master said, grabbing the Doctor’s hand and grinning. “I have something fantastic planned. Come on!”

The Doctor suddenly found himself being dragged through the palace’s gilded corridors. It was either that or say goodbye to his left arm, which he was really rather fond of. “Can I just point out the benefits of any early night?” He asked. “A long-awaited reconciliation, getting out of that filthy toga, the absolute certainty that no one will diе? Doesn’t that sound nice?”

“All in good time, Doctor. All in good time.”

Roman parties are for the most part terribly overrated. On the surface, the shindig that they walked into had all the hallmarks of decadence – people were lolling about on couches feeding each other grapes, bored-looking servants were working completely unnecessary palm-leaf fans, slipping togas were causing occasional partial nudity – but for the most part, everyone just looked bored. That said, it was entirely possible that just by walking in, the Doctor and the Master had completely killed the atmosphere. It would make sense, judging by the way that all conversations died and all heads turned in their direction the moment they entered the room. It reminded the Doctor off all the times he’d been the proverbial bucket of ice water at nasty taking-over-the-world parties. Maybe his life hadn’t changed that much after all.

“Ah, I’m supposed to make a speech, aren’t I?” The Master said tiredly to his new audience. “My work is never done. Right then, um, Happy New Years and everything. The other gods have informed me that this one is going to be a smasher, provided you keep on worshipping me and paying your taxes on time. Oh, and the next person to call my Doctor a whore gets fed to the lions, all right?” He paused heavily and then continued. “Enjoy this year, ladies and gentlemen of Rome. You never know, it may be your last.”

There was a brief smattering of half-hearted applause, and conversations gradually resurrected themselves. The Doctor was practically jumping up and down with frustration. “Is that enough mingling?”

The Master laughed and shook his head. “Contain yourself, Doctor. The night is still young... Ooh, look who dared to show his face,” he said, jerking his head towards the bearded figure of Cassius, standing in a corner nodding earnestly to what a fellow senator was saying.

“Watch this,” the Master said, snapping his fingers at a group of musicians playing nearby. They immediately changed their tune, playing what the Doctor now recognised as _While My Lyre Gently Weeps_. Over in his corner, Cassius jumped, literally leaving the ground, sloshing blood-red wine all down his front and earning several raised eyebrows from the other senators. The Doctor and the Master both cackled with glee.

“Okay, you’ve had your fun. Bed-time now?” The Doctor asked hopefully, trying to ignore the fact that the Master was dragging him out of the ballroom and onto the balcony, which was definitely in the opposite direction to where he wanted to be going.

“Soon, soon, I promise,” the Master said. He leaned over the railing and hollered to an unseen soldier below. “Misenus! Start them up now!”

“I really hope that ‘this year might be your last’ wasn’t some sort of ominous warning, and that you haven’t got this Misenus fellow readying some sort of machine that’s going to kill everyone,” the Doctor said, mostly to himself, “because that would put me in a really awkward position – oh!”

Fireworks, blue and white and blinding, were lighting up the sky above them and all of Rome below. The Doctor’s ears filled with their explosive crackling bangs, and his nostrils with the scent of gunpowder. It was a beautiful sight, one incredibly novel after such a long time without that sort of thing. It was also incredibly wrong.

“I suppose you met up with Marco Polo while you were in Naples?” The Doctor said, turning to the Master. “And he took such a liking to you that he decided to give you gunpowder, more than a thousand years before he was even born?”

The Master waved his hand at the Doctor dismissively. “I don’t know what you’re on about, but these things are child’s play – get some charcoal, sulphur, potassium sulphate, add some fire, and voila!” His words were punctuated by a shower of sparks erupting over their heads, and a series of screams from the ballroom.

They’d killed the party for a second time. Inside, people were clinging to each other, mouths and eyes wide with terror, or curled up foetus-style underneath tables. Only Cassius stood upright, pointing a single shaking finger at the Master.

“You did this!” He cried. “You, with your blasphemous talk of divinity! You have offended the gods, and now they punish us with a rain of fire!”  
“No, no, not at all,” the Master said, sweeping back into the ballroom. “Don’t you see? This isn’t a display of displeasure, more a show of support. My chums up on Mount Olympus know that I’ve had to deal with all manner of heresy form you lot, and they’ve sent me something to convince you all with. Now, sit down, won’t you?” he said, shoving Cassius to the ground.

“Some people never learn,” he sighed as he returned to the Doctor, still leaning dumbly against the balcony. “A shame he’s so useful. But _look_ , Doctor,” he said, spinning the Doctor around to face the ongoing show. “Isn’t it pretty? I bet you never got a New Years like this in Britannia.”

The Doctor shook his head sadly at the Master. “You’re impossible. You’re so wrong, and you don’t even realise it...”

“Oh stop that,” the Master said, pulling the Doctor down for a kiss. “Can’t you see how perfect this is?” His fingers were firm in the Doctor’s hair and his eyes were bright with either madness or reflected fireworks “This year is going to be _our year_.”


End file.
